The Unfinished Swan

The Unfinished Swan is a game based around exploration. The story is told as a fairy tale. The player controls the character Monroe whose ends up in an orphanage after his mother died. She used to paint and he brought along one of her favourite paintings: The Unfinished Swan, displaying a swan that is missing its neck. One night he awakens to discover the swan has jumped out of the canvas and has disappeared through a small door. He follows it and is transported in a magical world that is entirely white.

The game is played from a first-person perspective and Monroe is able to move around and jump. His only ability is to splatter the world with paint. The white garden where the game starts is entirely white, meaning there are no shadows or shades to give shape to the surroundings. That way launching paint is the only means to reveal surfaces. Objects or level elements do not disappear when they are not splattered, but it is as if Monroe is walking into a giant void. It can best be compared to the process of stone rubbing where the sense of distance and perspective of the entire world is only established through the paint.