Concrete Genie review — Heartwarming story, beautiful art, but tough controls

Posted byby Dean Takahashi
October 9, 2019
Updated June 19, 2025
6 min

If you ever felt the urge to take a magic paint brush and beautify the walls of a dilapidated city, then you’ll understand the basic gameplay of Concrete Genie. This game lets you create, or “paint,” works of art, as if you were creating masterpieces with the simple flick of a motion controller.

You play as Ash, a young boy who longs to bring back the glory days and colors of the abandoned fishing village of Denska. It feels like Thatgamecompany’s Flower from the PlayStation 3, but it has more characters, personality, and a deeper story.

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Written by

Dean Takahashi

Dean Takahashi is editorial director for GamesBeat. He has been a tech journalist since 1988, and he has covered games as a beat since 1996. He was lead writer for GamesBeat at VentureBeat from 2008 to April 2025. Prior to that, he wrote for the San Jose Mercury News, the Red Herring, the Wall Street Journal, the Los Angeles Times, and the Dallas Times-Herald. He is the author of two books, "Opening the Xbox" and "The Xbox 360 Uncloaked." He organizes the annual GamesBeat Next, GamesBeat Summit and GamesBeat Insider Series: Hollywood and Games conferences and is a frequent speaker at gaming and tech events. He lives in the San Francisco Bay Area.