Concrete Genie may not be on your radar like The Last of Us Part II and Death Stranding, but after an hour-and-a-half with Pixelopus’s upcoming first-party PS4 exclusive, its charming world, sincere messaging, and serene gameplay is shaping up to be an experience that absolutely should be.

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How Painting and Genies Work in Concrete Genie

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Concrete Genie’s Third-Act Combat Twist

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I jumped into the very start of Concrete Genie’s adventure, taking on the role of the young, bullied kid Ash in the dilapidated seaside town of Denska, and was immediately taken by the charming though intentionally drab world. That’s in part thanks to Pixelopus’ animation, which employs Coraline-esque stop-motion facial expressions for its characters, the A Series of Unfortunate Events-like world, and the sincerity with which the developers have written this story.Though Ash is the focus, he’s also plagued by a group of bullies, who get a small amount of screentime at the start but left a surprisingly deep impression on me. Their dialogue to one another, and to Ash, quickly establishes unique personalities — clearly some of the group is not as sure-headed in their bullying as others — and relationships among one another that I hope are explored throughout the rest of that story.And that story gets going quickly. Ash, finding his way to a rundown lighthouse in search of the scattered pages of his sketchbook, stumbles across some magically imbued pages and a paintbrush that bring his creations, the titular genies, to 2D life.I encountered some light platforming and collectibles meant to enhance your knowledge of the town and its current, disparaging state — but the main hook of Concrete Genie is its magical painting gameplay.Without any combat (well, until later in the game, but we’ll get to that), navigating Concrete Genie’s world is all about painting life back into Denska with Ash’s magical brush. Players have a palette of options to pull from in Ash’s notebook, which expands as you find more pages in the world, to paint trees, stars, grass, suns, and more. The foundational way each element looks remains the same, so you won’t be tasked with painting every blade of grass or perfectly forming the circular shape of the sun. But, with responsive movement from the DualShock 4’s motion controls, you adjust the size of a sun, the slope of a hill of grass, or the angle at which the branches of a tree bend.It sounds a bit limited on paper, but every wall is a blank canvas on which to paint, and there’s just enough freedom offered in the motion controls, alongside a generous amount of paint element options that I never felt my creativity limited as I painted. Ash needs to, essentially, literally paint the lights of his town back on, and literally drawing a line of stars across them is easy. But I found myself theming one wall as a sunny hillside, while the next would be a starry night bursting with life from the aurora borealis I painted.It’s an oddly serene and therapeutic gameplay mechanic. And while I did need to keep a watchful eye for bullies walking the streets, who would chase after me if they spotted me, I never felt rushed in my painting of all those little or big happy trees.But of course, as the name implies, the genies you populate the world with are the most fascinating element. Painting from a few different base types, I could brush the body of a genie onto a wall with the flick of my controller, while adding a few extra elements like branches or spikes as horns or tails, to the body. Once created, the genie takes on a personality based on how it’s created. Paint a squat, spiky little guy, and he’ll have a hot-headed attitude. But if I drew a long, wiener dog genie, he’d basically become a loyal pup.However you draw them, genies are meant to persist throughout the game, and I pretty immediately latched on to the two I drew as if they were my own real-life pets. They’re loyal and like to help (if you treat them to a desired painting now and then), bouncing along the walls of buildings and interacting with the world around you to help you progress.As you’re painting light back into the world, you’re also fighting back a mysterious purple and black goo that has infected everything. Your genies can’t cross this substance’s boundaries, but you can pull some particularly strong paint from your genies to weed out the darkness to progress. Otherwise, you’re not really engaging in any sort of fight — that is, until Concrete Genie’s third act.Late in the game, a new combat system is introduced to Ash’s repertoire to take on mysteriously appearing dark genies. Ash gains a suite of new abilities to tackle these foes, who have been glimpsed in previous demos.But taking them on doesn’t really feel like a fight. In line with Concrete Genie’s overall sense of earnestness and sincerity, these battles, at least from the one I encountered, play out more like attempts to capture a wild animal, protecting it from itself and from harming others. The actual flow of battle takes a little to attune to, but the fight I had left me wanting to play more.Ash gains the ability to magically skate on paint — think Cole’s gliding movement in Infamous — as I navigated around a district in town to hunt down the dark genie. Different good genies have different elemental attributes, and so I had to use my genie’s fire attacks to knock down this dark genie’s shield before swiping at it with more paint to whittle down its health. Armed with these moves and a dodge, this specific encounter never felt too challenging but worked well in step with the themes, gameplay, and overall mood Concrete Genie establishes in its opening.I’m excited to see how all of Concrete Genie’s facets come together and if they can remain engaging throughout its story. The opening sets up some fun, engrossing, and unique gameplay opportunities, alongside a world brimming with potential. And I hope, in full, Concrete Genie’s tale proves to be as consistently heartwarming and serene as its opening hour, and as surprising in its depth as the third-act twist indicated.

Jonathon Dornbush is IGN's Senior News Editor and host of IGN's PlayStation show, Podcast Beyond!. Talk to him on Twitter @jmdornbush