Awaken (2017)

It's ever unpleasant to give a bad review about a VR game, but like other times before products with flawless 100% positive ratings are not as good as my expectations. In this case, I'm an huge puzzle fan with I suppose all bigger puzzles for VR yet on library and finished, and I like also a lot low poly inspired kind of style. What I like the most is visible even from screenshots: nice abstract style, inspired environments, low poly untexturized assets. What is not working is instead about the game itself. The challenge level and the amount of "brain" needed to solve puzzles is casual at best, I'll rate like Water Bears or even more Carpe Lucem. There is nothing wrong in a low difficulty, it very depends on your expectations and skills, but if I compare this one to Bounce or Slice&Dice (in my opinion the peak in physics puzzle production for VR ) Awaken is so predictable and easy to be boring, I passed 30 stages in 30 minutes and the solution was instantly obvious any single time. Another thing than doesn't work as it should is the engine. Awaken stutters a lot, even if the amount of polygons and filters is around a GearVR standard, I like minimalism in graphics but I don't expe…

I expected this game to be soothing and calming, but all the bugs make me want to trash my controllers on the wall, starting the game starting without sound (has to be started as admin, remove headset, turn screen on, click, turn off screen, put headset back on), and the ingame bugs.

This is a really cool, musical puzzle game. It has a chill feel.

Very nice atmosphere and attention to details, good puzzles. Healing the animals and environment is a great extra motivation to see what's next. Would be awesome to be able to pet and/or play with them a bit at the end. Currently, the extensible metal rails are a bit fiddly at times, and I got some rare reprojection when too much physics was running, I guess (i5 4590).

I think I prefer Grav Lab in terms of mechanics, but this one is certainly more aesthetic. Spooky fox but fun nonetheless!

I've played through about half of the included levels, and a couple community levels. I enjoy this game a lot, the art style lends a lot to making it feel fantastical, and it does a good job of making you feel clever while solving the puzzles, especially when it takes a lot of trial and error to get to a solution. There aren't a lot of cons, except the non-sale price point is a bit high, and there were a few performance issues with the game when a lot of graphical elements were on-screen. All in all, it is a very fun puzzle game, with a nice atmosphere. I wouldn't say it's a must-have VR title, but definitely get it if it's on sale.