“Iris and The Giant” is one of those cases of indie games that conquers the player with beautiful, stylized graphics and a deep story that focuses on the protagonist’s sorrows and traumas. In terms of story progression, it is somewhat reminiscent of the success of “GRIS”. This kind of game engages on stream because of the possibility for the audience to connect with the characters and have a connection beyond the gameplay.

Going to the gameplay part, the game focuses on the deckbuilding style, reminding the classic “Slay the Spire”, the indie “Dicey Dungeons”, the most recent hit “Marvel Snap”, among others. However, the game focuses on simplicity and the use of cards in a turn-based game system where you must survive, kill the horde of characters on each floor, and progress and evolve your main character.

The progression of the game is roguelike, where each floor is procedural, and different enemies may appear depending on the run. As the game progresses, you unlock new cards, pets to accompany you on the floors and other possible help.

Repetition is key for “Iris and the Giant”

In terms of content, precisely because it is a game of try and repetition, is a game that involves many runs, and for content creators who like games of the roguelike genre, it engages in learning the game from the beginning, with the tutorial well instructive and explanatory, and the moments you exchanges with the viewers, but can fall into exhausting of repetition and/or frustration, especially those who are not used to these genres (deckbuilding and roguelike).

In the story part, the game is also very immersive but, somehow, I feel that in some moments the gameplay part is dissonant with the story itself, which is not a defect, but at each floor that passes it could have more intersections of stories and memories of the character so that the involvement with the protagonist could me even stronger.

In terms of optimization, the game runs very well on the Playstation 4 version, which was the one I tested, and does not seem to require much in computer versions and other platforms to which it was released. It has plenty of options and also subtitles for several languages, a positive point for the game and to help in the immersion.

Iris and the Giant

PC, PS4, PS5, Nintendo Switch (2020-2023)

Performance

Streamability

Audience Engagement

Replayability

Summary

Iris and the Giant has stupendous art, a beautiful and sublime background story with a simple background gameplay, which sometimes gets in the way by not helping to progress so much in the story while the gameplay lasts, but it doesn’t end up being a great sin as it have a fun gameplay that teaches its mechanics well from the beginning, by directly involving the player and not leaving it oblivous to those who are watching during a transmission, which also helps, in a way, its performance in stream, despite the possibility of disinterest with the passing of many attempts.

Ludovicoluka

I have 25 years, I produce content to internet for 4 years and I like retro games, indies and I’m an enthusiast for new launches. I have as my favorite games Donkey Kong Country 2, Super Mario World, Hollow Knight and Red Dead Redemption II, per example. I like to experiment everything and the more, the better, but I never get sick of my comfort games!