Bound is a 3D Cinematic Platform Game / Environmental Narrative Game, developed by Plastic Studios as a Playstation 4 exclusive and released on August 16th, 2016.
Its story is a combination of present-day narrative, where a pregnant woman walks along the beach, and the fantastical gameplay, where a nameless princess navigates highly abstract labyrinths of her kingdoms, tasked by her mother to stop the monster destroying it. At the end of each princess level, the woman on the beach will recall the childhood memories those levels were associated with during the present day, thus connecting the two narratives.
Has no relation to either of the two films with that name, or a How to Train Your Dragon fanfic.
Tropes present in Bound:
- Abusive Parents: The protagonist's mother is neglectful and abusive to both her children and husband, causing the children both physical and emotional trauma and causing the father to leave the family. The protagonist's desire to heal and grow from this pain is what the game is all about.
- Amazing Technicolor Population: The princess has a skin tone that ranges from dark green to purple, depending on the lighting.
- Art Shift: Bound goes from the largely realistic but slightly clay-looking graphics on the beach and in the memories, to the highly abstract and polygonal art style of the princess's world.
- Breaking the Cycle of Bad Parenting: The game's narrative revolves around the protagonist's desire for this.
- Death Is a Slap on the Wrist: Checkpoints are frequent, so falling off is not a big concern.
- Floating Platforms: These appear about 10 minutes into the game. There are both motionless and moving types.
- Foolish Sibling, Responsible Sibling: The brother and the protagonist, respectively.
- Idle Animation: The princess, whose movements are all dance moves, will start doing ballet stretches if left alone.
- Multiple Endings: Two: the pregnant protagonist can either ring her estranged father's doorbell and confront him with her notebook (symbolizing her painful past, her growth since then, and her hopes for the future) to tell him that she's having a baby...or she can leave without him ever knowing she was there and throw her notebook in the garbage.
- One-Way Visor: All the characters in the princess's world wear masks that are essentially purple, one-way visors covering the entirety of their faces.
- Parental Abandonment: The pregnant protagonist's father abandoned the family in her childhood to escape his abusive and neglectful wife, unfortunately leaving his kids with her. The game centers around the protagonist visiting her father's current home and trying to confront and heal from her traumatic childhood memories as she approaches the house. The player can ultimately choose whether the protagonist confronts him or moves on and forgets about him.
- Player Death Is Dramatic: Downplayed: dying instantly breaks up the body of the princess into a cloud of colored polygons (the color of which changes depending on the level being played), which is dramatic but happens very quickly, and the game loads the previous checkpoint immediately after that. However, she still has the remains of that colored cloud trailing her for the next few seconds after respawning.
- The Scapegoat: The protagonist's brother lets her get blamed for knocking over the plants in the memory associated with the Trees stage.
- Sequence Breaking: The game has a lot of this intentionally built in for the purposes of speedrunning.
- Slasher Smile: The mouthed giant wears the same visor as the princess and her mother, but it has a wide crack near its bottom corner that forms such a smile.
- Speaking Simlish: The princess and the other denizens of the kingdom converse in whisper-like abstractions of speech.
- Symbolism: The game runs on this. Respectively, the princess, queen, mouthed giant, and mouthless giant are symbolic representations of the pregnant protagonist, her mother, her father, and her brother. The entire game is about the protagonist confronting and trying to heal from her family's traumatic past in order to prepare for having a family of her own, with each stage representing a traumatic memory from her childhood and overcoming the fear of that memory at the end of the stage. After overcoming a particular fear, the obstacle associated with that fear (tendrils for the Trees stage, paper airplanes for the Planes stage, the mouthed giant's voice for the Shout stage, pink orbs for the Pearls stage, and flames for the Steam stage) will no longer affect the princess. There are even hidden areas you cannot traverse unless you have first overcome particular fears in other stages first, with a message popping up saying, "This path is blocked by your Fears," if you have not yet overcome the fear associated with the obstacle blocking that path.
- Temporary Platform: Blue and purple-colored pillars will collapse under the princess' weight.
- Turning Into Your Parent: The fear of this drives the plot.
- Wall Jump: Present and useful for finding hidden areas.
