‘Bound’ Lets You Dance Your Way to Catharsis

It’s a gorgeous thought: a troubled girl vaults and pirouettes her way through a geometrically unglued otherworld to something like emotional resolution in this one. Plastic Studios’ Bound has a fantastic setup, and it’s a wonder to behold, thus it’s a shame the gameplay feels like such an afterthought.

But see for yourself in this TIME Plays video. As I wrote in my review:

“In this elliptic fantasy world, you play as a girl who must dance her way through a mystery. Tap a button and she’ll leap from the balls of her feet with arms outstretched and wing-like. Tap another and she’ll slowly raise a sylphlike leg to the sky, tracing a precise arc before pirouetting perfectly. You never use these moves for violence, and you never actually fight anything. They’re instead tantamount to invoking a forcefield: As geometric shapes lash out to slow or snare you, dancing makes you invulnerable and limbers you to move.”