Projection: First Light

[b]I just wanted to catch a butterfly…[/b] Projection: First Light follows a little girl named Greta that lives in a shadow puppet world. The story is told without dialogue and all you have left is context with some conversations being conveyed with pictures. We join Greta on a day when she spots a butterfly that is emitting light and Greta can’t help but to try and catch it. As she’s chasing after it, she manages to break or crash everything she comes across. This ultimately causes the owners to become mad at her and going to her parents, causing Greta to be grounded once she comes back home with the butterfly trapped within a jar. In frustration, she accidentally breaks the butterfly’s jar and after realizing that there is a secret passageway, decides to run away. This then starts the journey though five different countries, Indonesia, China, Turkey, Greece, and England, as she takes control of a glowing ball of light. Projection: First Light is a simple, but unique platformer. Greta can’t jump high and she’s not that good at pulling herself up, so she relies on a glowing ball of light to aid her. How so? By positioning the light to where it will cast a shadow for her to use as…

If you want a puzzle platformer, this is not it. I'm a third of the way into the game and only one section has had something that you could MAYBE define as a "new mechanic", and as soon as that section was over it stopped being used. It's more like a 2D maze collectathon where just getting around is tedious and annoying. Really disappointing.

I am surprised that this game only has been reviewed 10 times 2 years after its release. It took me 6 hours to finish the game and I actually liked it a lot. The gameplay is quite unique, it reminded me a bit of a game like Closure which is another platformer where you play with light and shadows to solve puzzles and get to the end of each level. This game deserves more attention as it offers a fresh take on the puzzle platforming genre, is very beautiful and charming.

Very beautiful and original game.

Been waiting to play this since I had a quick go at PAX a couple years ago. Great game with a unique puzzle mechanic that is utilised well and evolves with good progression throughout the levels. Very satisfying to complete and never so challenging that I wanted to rage quit, nor so easy that I was bored. The only small gripes I have is that moving other objects with a shadow could sometimes be a bit painful and there was once I couldn't move once I had a shadow raise me up. Otherwise lots of fun and I'm recommending this to all the gamers I know.

Visually stunning platformer. Very interesting mechanics, although using them was a little frustrating at times. Overall enjoyable experience though