I've played the game a while ago myself and enjoyed it a lot, but for this project also replayed the game once more together with a bunch of graduation friends with a more analytical mindset. This game has inspired me with it’s beautiful, interesting and unique ways of visual storytelling and use of symbolism. Do keep in mind that this is my perspective and in no way the exact true meaning of the game.

I'll go through some examples.

Denial

In the very beginning of the game, in the grief stage of denial, right after the cutscene where a woman and her hand that she stands on breaks, she falls down in a misty world of nothingness.

There's no colour, only graytones and mostly white in the environment. Gris herself is the only exception of colours, with her blue hair. She walks very slowly at first, slowly regaining some strength to walk faster. The architecture around her is decayed and asymmetrical.

There's little rock creatures that walk around, but stop when you get closer.

I associate these creatures with how Gris experiences people at this time. She's not seeing them as real people at this point because of her feelings of grief and denial.

I associated this with dissatisfaction, slowness, emptiness, denial, pain and holding onto the past.

Anger

Later, in the anger stage of grief, a lot of reds and contrast were used in the art. This already sets an intense tone. In this part the gameplay consisted of giant dark red windstorms pushing Gris backwards if she didn’t hide inside buildings.

For me, this symbolized her anger appearing unexpected and being overwhelming. The periodic timing stood for that she has to ride the waves of her feelings and take her time. That she has to pace herself and shouldn’t try to force herself to make progress. Keep trying, keep breathing.

After a while of waiting for the right moments to walk you learn a new ability: becoming a heavy rock. With this ability she can also groundpound when she's in the air, and walk slowly when on the floor.

I think this stands for Gris learning how to deal with her intense emotions of anger, finding strength within herself.

Since the rockform makes Gris heavy, Gris doesn't fall back anymore when she's in the storm in said form.

At some point a storm comes up that doesn't end. This is the players que to figure out that you have to start walking slowly in rockform. It's slow progress, but it's progress nontheless. It's the only way to move foreward in this part of the game.

I think this is both visually and symbolically very interesting.

For me, this stands for learning to find strength in being patient with yourself. Learning to cope with your emotions, learning that you can deal with them, no matter how hard it may seem.