Prepare to unravel the tangled tale of Woven, out now on the Nintendo Switch from the team at Alterego Games.
Woven is a rather laid back Adventure game with puzzle elements set in an adorable wooly and stitch filled world. Players take control of an unlikely hero named Stuffy, a well meaning but incredibly clumsy creature that stumbles across a strange mechanical firefly called Glitch. Together they will attempt to discover why all these metal machines have suddenly appeared, what has happened to all of Stuffy’s friends and Glitch’s missing memories. The game is accompanied by a charming storybook style rhyme, that tells the story of our heroes as players progress through the land. By collecting blueprints and using the knitting machines spread throughout each world, players will reshape Stuffy into various different animal designs to solve puzzles and traverse obstacles. Becoming strong animals will allow players to move heavy objects and becoming nimble characters will increase players movement options.
Stuffy starts off as an elephant but quickly players will begin to find blueprints for various other animals from aardvarks to giraffes and deer. Although there are dozens of different animals there is only a handful of required skills, this means lots of animal skills overlap leaving it up to the player to find and use the animals that they love. It is possible to mix and match body parts and fabric types however players see fit, making each version of stuffy as unique as you. A keen eye and exploration is certainly rewarded as hidden throughout the world are a myriad of different blueprints and fabrics for players to use.
Controls are fairly simple and most puzzles can be worked out with ease meaning that players both young and old can enjoy Woven. We did find a handful of rather ambiguous puzzles that took us a little bit longer to figure out than they should have but this certainly didn’t ruin our experience. The world surrounding our heroes is adorable and relaxing for the most part and we found it an enjoyable place to explore and observe with lots of nice little touches spread around.
Woven is a delightful and charming adventure game with a few simple flaws that prevents it from being perfect. Players that crave the simplicity and fun from classic puzzle platformers will thoroughly enjoy every seam and stitch in Woven’s unique world.
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Mat Panek, Chief Reporter
Retromancer – Collector, repairer & fan of retro games & tech. Atari to Amiga, Nintendo to Sega! LD, Zip, Beta and a proud dad! One half of the TiredParents on Twitch.
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Disclosure: Woven [Nintendo Switch eShop code] was kindly provided by PR Hound for this review.
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