Punch Bears

Punch Bears is a highly symbolic game which can make the game a bit of a nightmare to review. Since, the repetitive nature of the gameplay and the lack of a large world to explore are rather meaningless in the face of what the game is trying to convey. In a way this game feels like a master piece much like William Carlos Williams, "The Red Wheelbarrow".

As I already stated Punch Bears is less about what is happening on screen then why it is happening. And in that sense the game can be both highly simplistic to play while being extremely deep and interesting.

This is clearly seen early on in the game when Ulrika points out that everything that is taking place is happening inside of her head. None of the events that take place have any meaning in reality, but if you wish to ignore the symbolism taking place you can simply view Punch Bears as a short stress relieving game that fails when it comes to being entertaining in the long run, but Punch Bears is clearly a beast of a different kind from your usual RPG maker fare.

It's easy to see that Ulrika is representative of why people play video games, read books, or even watch movies. We utilize these mediums of expression to escape from the mundane and repetitive nature of reality in order to inhabit a world of fantasy. As such Ulrika becomes an every person. She can be a grumpy old man with a failing heart or a young child who still hasn't learned the harsh lessons of adult hood.

Even Ulrika's perceptions of self are reflective of how the player imagines themselves within their own mind. Who wants to imagine themselves as being ordinary when they can be an unstoppable juggernaut that wields power over life and death? A god or goddess that determines if the outcome of a story will be a comedy or a tragedy. An entity that can be the avatar of the virtues of humanity or an avatar of the darkness within us all. Or you can simply be a person that punches bears in the face!

But in the end the fantasy always falls away at the silent please whispered in our ears by the hard shackles of reality. We may bend the links and loosen the cuffs but we can never do away with them.