Unleaving | PC Review

There are many reasons why I love playing independently made games. Small studios are enabled to make unique experiences with creative juices dripping over every scene. Unleaving adds another chapter to my book of game love. Unleaving is a puzzle platformer in the spirit of Limbo or Little Nightmares. A certain GO Cast podcast member said, “It looks like Limbo in color,” and he was exactly right. It’s a solo side scroller at heart while each scene contains a puzzle or two that you must solve before moving on to the next scene. I had my hiccups, but, upon credits rolling, found myself enraptured by the creativity and, dare I say, emotional from the abstract poetry of the game.

Poetry in Game Form

The game makers (Orangutan Matter) were kind enough to mention the poem that inspired this game: “Spring to Fall For a Young Child” by Gerard Manley Hopkins. The poem is about how the changing of the seasons is just like life. A tree losing its leaves as Summer changes to Autumn is like human aging. What does that mean through the eyes of a young person? 

Unleaving’s puzzles might seem beside the point. They work to give the player something to do to progress to the next segment of the game. They are difficult puzzles, too. Some rely on very specific timing of an action. Trial and error works best, and the player can finally figure out the right way to go about the solution. Other puzzles require very specific placement in order to jump the right way. I think my least favorite puzzle included a light bulb that was pretty far away, in the context of the rest of the puzzles, and didn’t make a lot of sense to intuitively solve it. Thankfully, after dying/failing six or seven times, the game offers you a vague assist. It doesn’t spell out the solution but does just enough to point your brain in the right direction. 

The puzzles progress the segments of the game, though. And those segments are gorgeous. Like most poetry, you could allow yourself to think in the abstract. It could mean something different to you. I caught what the game meant to me pretty quickly, though. Being on the B side of the life expectancy mountain, I immediately thought of mortality and how we should fill our lives with value while we’re here. The puzzles and artistry told me to look back at my life’s mistakes with regret and sadness while promoting adaptation and inspiring me to not make the same mistake twice. 

The game opens with a young child sitting on a cliff. The child is purposefully androgynous to allow players of all genders to identify with the child’s confusion, curiosity, and adventure. The last leaf falls from a tree, floats a moment, then turns into a moth. You follow the moth until you come across a couple of simple puzzles to introduce the mechanics of the game.

The Weak Spot

I played Unleaving on Steam. That’s how I played it. You can use the common WASD to move in those directions. The other simple (default) controls are space to jump and the shift key to take action; you’re usually grabbing an item to drag it to the needed puzzle placement. I found that the controls on the keyboard were a little soft. Since the puzzles require specific timing or placement, I needed those keys to respond. The split seconds that I felt I was losing made the puzzles more difficult than they already were. I’m sure I could have adapted to this, as well, but I decided that I would rather play the game with a controller. The good ole Xbox controller was waiting for me. Hello, A to jump and X to action/grab. Unfortunately, the responsiveness was still a little soft. I had to adapt but I kept the controller as my device of choice.

Since the game mechanics are rather simple and easy to explain, I’d much rather focus on the bread and butter of this game: the visuals and music.

So Beautiful, It Might Invoke Feelings

I was enthralled by the first scene. The art style is very much like a painting. You can see the canvas upon which Unleaving is drawn. Utterly magnificent. Each chapter of the game and the “cut scenes” (for lack of a better word) were carefully crafted by some artists with tremendous skill. They encapsulate the poetry of the game in art form. Their work had me stopping my progress just to look around and immerse myself in the environment that they created for us, which is precisely what the game tells you to do before it begins. They explain about the thousands of pieces created in a variety of styles: acrylics, pencils, paint, among others. I felt like I was in a museum of art with every step the child took.

Even the puzzles take advantage of the artists’ skills while creating them. The lone “bad guy” of the game is a dog that chases after you in a couple of segments. A few months back, I reviewed a game called Howl, which I absolutely adored. The way this dog was drawn was very similar to the way the wolves were drawn in Howl. That positive connection only enhanced my adoration for this game’s art style. I cannot speak highly enough. My hat is tipped to their team.

The sound and music while you’re playing Unleaving is pretty minimalistic. You get your water sounds, your wind sounds, the child running. They work perfectly in the flow of the game without being neither repetitive nor a distraction. And then, when you’ve solved a main segment of the game, there is a cut-scene that drives the player forward. These cut-scenes include some of the most beautiful music that I’ve ever heard in a game. The choral arrangements brought tears to my eyes. Sometimes I felt mystical, sometimes mystery, sometimes hope, sometimes loss. The power of the art and the music to bring me to such emotion…in a video game? This game certainly hit me in ways that I don’t recall experiencing before.

Please Play This Game (and independent games as a whole)

I died. A lot! I struggled mightily with two puzzles, in particular, which drove my total game time to 4 hours. Someone more experienced with these types of puzzle games might get through Unleaving in less than 3 hours. It is worth every second. Supporting games like this allows independent game makers to make more games. In this time of large studio layoffs, I love supporting the independent game makers who try something new and different. When those smaller development studios, like Orangutan Matter, put this amount of love and care into their artistry, I want to support that.

Despite getting a review copy of this game, I am going to purchase it to support this group of artists and gamers. They created an experience that I will think about for a while and is currently resting comfortably in my Game of the Year contenders list. If you’re looking for a quick hit puzzle-platformer that will test your gaming skills while filling your heart and mind with beauty and art, Unleaving should be at the top of your list.

To hear me talk more about Unleaving, be sure to listen to the April 3 episode of The Gaming Outsider podcast.

This review is based on a PC copy of Unleaving provided by Evolve PR for coverage purposes. It is exclusive to this platform.