Vane

I have mixed feelings about this game. Foremost, the visuals are stunning, the world-building is excellent, and the story is very meta. But the game just lacks proper guidance. In the first scene, you need to find 5 wind chimes and land on them. Does the game tell you this? Noooooo. Funny thing, in later games it is more obvious what you should do...but only a little. But because it is quite a unique experience, I can somewhat recommend it.

Artistically and conceptually [i]Vane[/i] has a lot going for it, and ended up being more or less what I expected. Rough as it is, and understandably so, due to the studio releasing it prematurely due to running out of money. It has the bones of a classic, underrated, silent ICO-style puzzle-exploration adventure. If you are patient and can bear that last missing 10% of polish in the bird landing mechanics, quality-of-life, walking speed, and those subtle hints that could have made it really-really stand out, then I think it's worth your time. The flying and scenery (and that overwhelming feeling of freedom and wonder) can be beautiful at times, and I wish they'd done more with the calming bird parts mechanically, maybe more of a 50/50. But the human puzzles in the middle part are also well done. The rolling parts overstay their welcome a little bit, but surprised me. -- Things I think could be better; the closed loop storyline, which is a common trope and can be seen from a mile away, dark, samey, byzantine levels in the latter part where you need to implicitly fly and scout around until you understand the layout and the right order of sequence without getting lost. This wouldn…

In my opinion, this game—created by former members of the team behind Fumito Ueda’s The Last Guardian—is far too little-known, and unjustly so. The outstanding art design, with its breathtaking megastructures and landscapes, lends a special touch to this fascinating world that requires no explanation. The simple gameplay fits well with the cryptic “plot,” and the sparingly used but beautiful soundtrack and excellent sound effects make the game a short, special experience.

This game was a mixed bag, but I'll still recommend playing - twice (one to get all but one of the achievements, and the other to get the remaining one). The game gives you the least bit of indications on where your objective (or what for that matter). It also gives sort of free rein to just roam around as a bird for a most of the time (should you choose so). The game world and the events appears to be a metaphor or symbolism (which mostly went over my head). The graphics though are a different thing altogether. They are... unique. It's well made but doesn't give you the impression some times. The generation of environment due to the player actions is quite something the first few times, but you get used to it. I loved the way they had pulled out animating the movement of birds flying (the player character) to an unnatural degree (except for the landing ones or the stallilng ones). You will see other NPC birds moving along a line slowly when trying to land and wonder what the hell happened to their animations. The camera angles spoil a lof of the fun and can make you mis-judge things too. It's not fixed in most cases, but is not well functional in most cases. You think you…

🐦‍⬛🐦‍⬛🐦‍⬛🐦‍⬛🐦‍⬛🐦‍⬛🐦‍⬛🐦‍⬛🐦‍⬛/🐦‍⬛🐦‍⬛🐦‍⬛🐦‍⬛🐦‍⬛🐦‍⬛🐦‍⬛🐦‍⬛🐦‍⬛🐦‍⬛ 9/10 birds, cacaw

I enjoyed it, sort of. It has a great puzzle dynamic, beautiful visuals and deep soundtrack. But the camera and controls are absolutely rubbish. The game is overpriced and buggy. The theme and story is very shallow, you have to dig really deep to make connections to philosophical and psychological contexts. Only play this if you have patience and enjoy indie games a lot.