Catching fish in the cool fresh air
For him to growl was quite rare
He roamed the woods, he was happy there
Then one day to his despair
A greedy sneedy millionaire
Placed an ugly building where
Strange people came, just to stare
Something in his heart did tear
When he saw what went on in there
Pointless objects hanging mid-air
Hidden subtext from just a square?
His habitat in disrepair
Bewildered by this whole affair
At that point our bear did swear
To destroy this "Art" everywhere!
Bears vs. Art is a Puzzle Game by Halfbrick Studios released on iOS and Android, that pits bears against their most natural enemies... Art paintings!
Rory was a friendly bear who enjoyed his life in a forest. His happiness is ruined when a bunch of snooty millionaires arrive and open many galleries with very abstract art pieces, ruining the forest in process. Confused and angered, Rory decides to infiltrate these buildings and rid this world of any and all art he can find.
The game is grid-based, giving Rory eight directions to move in, rolling forward until a wall is hit. When he reaches an art piece, you have the opportunity to slice it down. The road won't be so easy, however, as many building have guests, security guards and even thieves roaming around, with spikes, lasers and portals further complicating things for our bear.
Bears vs. Art provides examples of:
- Beware the Nice Ones: According to the intro cutscene, Rory was Beary Friendly who very rarely growled. Then millionaires started invading his home with art galleries...
- Ecocidal Antagonist: Greedy millionaires ruined the forest Rory lived in by filling it with art galleries. This became one half of the reason why the bear wants to destroy the paintings.
- Gratuitous Ninja: Golden Cliffs stages add ninjas to the mix. They serve the same role as thieves, but teleport to a random spot upon getting caught by Rory and require three hits to take their paintings away.
- Inexplicably Identical Individuals: All guards look like balding moustashed men with glasses. This is lampshaded in the cutscene to level 38, where one of the guards talks about uncanny similarities between them, while the other denies it.
- Rolling Attack: Rory moves around by rolling. This becomes effective against guests, thieves, and guards, through the latter only get temporarily stunned by this move.
- Screw the Rules, I Have Money!: One of the characters that appears on the Frozen Cove map screen is Mr. Sneedy, a millionaire from the intro cutscene. While other characters that slowly advance through the levels seem to play a fair game, it's outright stated that Mr. Sneedy doesn't actually solve any of the puzzles, simply buying the solutions to them.All problems can be overcome with money!
- Spikes of Doom: Level 11, "Edgy Art", introduces spikes as the very first lethal obstacle, hitting which causes an instant Game Over.
- Timed Mission: Some levels ditch the limited number of moves in favor of having a very little time to complete a specific objective, and some feature both.
- True Art Is Incomprehensible: The game is full of rich people who visit art galleries and appreciate the paintings, which more often than not look like an unsorted mess of paint splothes, numbers and the like. A few of them are actually parodies of famous paintings, however.
