This is a touching and (as the name suggests) pretty simple little game that I enjoyed a lot. It's a dialogue-free, emo-puzzle platformer in the same vein as Journey, RiME and Brothers: A Tale of Two Sons. You play as an old man who has died and appears to be reliving certain key memories from his life, all of which centre around his partner, from first meeting her as a young boy, right up until old age. The story, such as it is, treads a fine line between sentimental and twee, and although you can see where it's all going from the very start (the devs are obviously big fans of the first 10 minutes of Up - put it that way), I still came out the other side feeling like it was quite affecting.
Each of its ten levels are only twenty minutes or so long and include abstract or magic realist elements. In one you're miniaturised, exploring a huge forest, jumping from one skyscraper-sized sunflower to another, whereas in a later level you're wading through snow drifts from light source to light source, trying not to freeze to death. The central gimmick is that you get to control time using the right analog stick, moving it one way to fast-forward and the other to rewind. This allows for some straightforward but nonetheless effective platforming; in one memorable sequence you have to navigate a canyon in the middle of an earthquake, using the time travel mechanic to ascend boulders that are in the process of tumbling in slow-mo from a ridge above, then pausing time to bridge gaps using collapsing trees. It's all very gentle and, with checkpoints everywhere and near-instant restarts, not exactly coaxing. Thankfully, however, after completing Huntdown at the weekend, gentle and undemanding was precisely the sort of thing I was after, so I didn't mind.
It's also quite a pretty game, for all its simplicity, with varied environments, over-saturated colours and some lighting effects that are very easy on the eye. Special mention should go to the orchestral soundtrack, too, which often mirrors the gameplay: plinky-plonky minimalist piano in the bits where you're supposed to feel sad, and then, in one especially spectacular set piece, soaring majestically as you're magically swept along by the wind.
Overall, it's less than four hours long, it's not very demanding, it tells a sweet little tale, and it's currently about £3.50 from CDKeys. Money well spent, I say
Each of its ten levels are only twenty minutes or so long and include abstract or magic realist elements. In one you're miniaturised, exploring a huge forest, jumping from one skyscraper-sized sunflower to another, whereas in a later level you're wading through snow drifts from light source to light source, trying not to freeze to death. The central gimmick is that you get to control time using the right analog stick, moving it one way to fast-forward and the other to rewind. This allows for some straightforward but nonetheless effective platforming; in one memorable sequence you have to navigate a canyon in the middle of an earthquake, using the time travel mechanic to ascend boulders that are in the process of tumbling in slow-mo from a ridge above, then pausing time to bridge gaps using collapsing trees. It's all very gentle and, with checkpoints everywhere and near-instant restarts, not exactly coaxing. Thankfully, however, after completing Huntdown at the weekend, gentle and undemanding was precisely the sort of thing I was after, so I didn't mind.
It's also quite a pretty game, for all its simplicity, with varied environments, over-saturated colours and some lighting effects that are very easy on the eye. Special mention should go to the orchestral soundtrack, too, which often mirrors the gameplay: plinky-plonky minimalist piano in the bits where you're supposed to feel sad, and then, in one especially spectacular set piece, soaring majestically as you're magically swept along by the wind.
Overall, it's less than four hours long, it's not very demanding, it tells a sweet little tale, and it's currently about £3.50 from CDKeys. Money well spent, I say