Bottle is the third game, and walking simulator, from publisher/developer Tonguç Bodur. Their previous two titles, Drizzlepath and Drizzlepath: Genie both gained a variety of mixed reviews that generally weighed on the positive side. The company sets out to provide walking simulators that have a peaceful, relaxing nature to them and they are set in remote, rural landscapes. In Bottle, you play as an obvious alcoholic whose wife has left him due to his problem.
I like me a good, relaxing walking simulator; it's a nice deviation from busy, fast-paced shooters and tense, frightening horror games. That being said, there are a couple of things that cause Bottle to be not quite what some may be looking for within this genre. First of all is the walking speed, it's tediously slow. There are occasional "pick-ups", for lack of a better term, that will grant you higher speed for a little while, but once it's over it feels like you're walking slower than ever. The second thing is, lack of a compelling, or even mildly interesting, story. Bottle is about losing someone you love due to you being afflicted with alcoholism; nothing more, and the six notes that are found in-game aren't exceptionally captivating.
Through the largest majority of the game, you will be traversing a colorful snow-filled rural landscape laden with rocks and trees, a couple of animals also make an appearance along the way. The only deviation from this is a small cave that you will venture through, as sort of a symbolic "from the darkness into the light" type inclusion. There's a path at all times to indicate the way that you're supposed to go, however the world is actually very explorable but doing so comes with little gain. Upon completion of the main game, you will unlock Walk Noir mode which has an alternate ending, a star-filled sky, and it a black and white filter to indicate night time.
The ambiance of Bottle is very well crafted, although the piano tracks never seem to last long enough to get you to your next destination. Often, especially if you take it upon yourself to explore a little further than the beaten path, the soundtrack will stop and not loop. Instead, you must arrive at the next note for the music to begin again. There are also sounds of wolves howling and the wind moving through foliage. When it's working, the soundtrack is quite relaxing and it pairs well with everything else that this game is.
This is another one of those titles that I wish Steam had an in-between option for; Bottle is neither good, nor is it necessarily bad. I found that my relaxation was replaced by frustration from the overly slow movement speed. It takes roughly half an hour per playthrough to complete, and by the time you land in Walk Noir mode you will just want to rush to see what has changed in the end. As well, the soundtrack failing to loop does pull you from the immersion of the game. It's not bad, it's not good, it's fairly mediocre... but hey, it looks pretty, especially for less than two bucks.
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