8 Recent Video Game Mechanics That Absolutely BOMBED

8. Musical Time Limits - Of Bird And Cage

When Of Bird And Cage was announced, it sounded like sweet music to the ears of gamers looking for something well and truly different.

According to the pre-release hype, this was a game that contained both an in-depth and emotional narrative throughline and delivered its story through the lens of music. Not just any music, however, as here the tracks wouldn't repeat themselves Ad nauseam while the player ambled about, instead gameplay was timed with sections of the music, and once the track shifted so to would the entire experience.

In practice, this seemed like it would truly tie the score to the emotion on screen, however, in practice things were more divorced dad rock than they were West End musical.

This was down to the often convoluted way puzzles were presented to the player, causing them to waste a tonne of time trying to figure out how to progress, leading to the music then ticking over and the section ending with little understanding of what's going on. This in turn made the emotional beats drag enough to give JK Simmons fizzy blood, and left the player feeling disconnected from the events they were supposed to be invested in.

It was all the right notes, just played in the wrong order.