REVIEW : SCARF (PC)
Scarf and their inhabitants look like a mysterious picture book. The story is surprisingly dark and confusing. The Scarf is a visually appealing 3D puzzle platform and adventure game developed by Uprising Studio and published by THQ Nordic. When he and his polymorphic Scarf solve various puzzles, help other lost souls fuse with nature, and learn what it means to be a hero, it’s a magical spirit, Haiku. Follow. It’s important to clarify, as this is a promotional phrase that appears in scarf marketing materials and is rarely revealed during the game.
A very simple but diverse environmental puzzle adventure and an excellent platform game in three areas to explore.
The story struggles to interlock the game and give it a strong identity, especially for less original stories told in a mediocre way. Puzzle platformers often have difficulty separating the wheat from rice husks for the genre that produced so many great games. This is doubly true when the games under the roof remind each other strongly with certain visual or mechanical elements.
But what is clear is how fun it is to play and explore Scarf. Uprising Studio leverages Unreal Engine 4 to create a beautiful, detailed environment full of colour, shines, and conveys a welcoming calm. Players navigate the three worlds of scarves by running, jumping, and using Scarf to slide, swing, and double jump. Ghosts, including the Scarf itself, inhabit these worlds, and each player must solve shrine puzzles, environmental puzzles, and mechanical puzzles to find their ghosts. Our protagonist looked around for a while after waking. Shortly after that, a sentimental scarf with a partially solemn look was what many in Christmas movies and life were looking for: purpose and mission. Give him. To re-establish contact with the essence “somewhere else” in another dimension, the mother, the portal, needs to be reopened with a fabric similar to the Scarf itself. My mother made us, but someone ran away with a cloth and made a new place where we are now. Our responsibility is to find the handkerchief, reopen the passage and reunite with the mother. Or stand by the fleeing rebels and somehow help them gain freedom.
The scarf story setting is very reminiscent of fairy tales. When our playable character arrives on an airy island surrounded by endless water, he encounters a dragon-shaped scarf that wraps around his neck. Soon he weaves a story about the destruction of his mother by the presence of “light flesh” (which seems to have created our fascinating hero), who used the rest of the thread to create a portal to a new world. Experience the memories of the creatures. As a signal, we see the number of these light beings doing just that on the island.
The game carries the character to the presence of these lights to recover the stolen thread of the mother working on rebuilding the portal to the original world of the Scarf. As you progress, you will find hidden collections that explain the intricacies of what is happening in the form of shortcut scenes with stories and art. Most of the time, you choose visual storytelling over vast storytelling but don’t hesitate to use narration on these segments to get a better picture for your players.
A five-hour adventure unfolds, exploring three areas full of environmental puzzles (sea, desert, forest) and taking you to the rebels one after another. Once they reach them, they can steal their fabrics, return to the portal and repair the passageways between the worlds.
Each area has elements that recur in both style and playfulness, and the surrounding puzzles are very different between the three areas. This leads to the most successful aspects of the adventure.
The basic gameplay remains unchanged, but each area has its concept. Add something to the interaction. For example, in Ocean, the protagonist’s agility is the master, but most puzzles involve interactions with other creatures, crows, and rabbits in Forest. In the meantime, the Scarf is a section where you can take advantage of the Scarf’s mobility (from double jumps to slides to slings), puzzles to manipulate the environment, place crystals in specific missions, deflect laser beams, and more. You may have been waiting for you in an environmental puzzle for years.
Everything is done with skill, accompanying the story, and always with a low level of difficulty so as not to get bored in the meantime. One puzzle at a time, one platform section at a time, reach the end of each area, collect up to some collectibles (paintings and toys), and a specific section similar to many other theme games. Find the memories that are. Reveals the truth about a story that is slightly different from what was originally told. At every step and section, try to tell the game’s story as much as possible. HandyGames didn’t get in the way of giving the character to the situation or animation, even the way the protagonist and the Scarf see each other through adventure.
The puzzles aren’t too difficult, but they’re pretty smart. One of the specific areas that stood out was the forest world, where players had to use multiple systems to succeed. Players may encounter three different dark spheres called inks as they explore each world. When enough ink is collected, it opens up a different perspective on the story. Unfortunately, this other perspective is very confusing because it often forgets that there is a story.
The Scarf is almost wordless and relies on physical representation to tell the story, but when ink is collected or certain cutscenes occur, the story suddenly breaks in. The information provided at these moments aims to build what the player is putting together, but there isn’t much that allows the player to do so. Its little history that can be stitched together is at odds with the story it pitches, and a spoilers example of this happens in the gameplay loop itself.
The story of the introduction tells of the mother’s spirit, which was torn apart by other spirits because of its power, and Shoal seeks to regain this power. As the player enters the first world, the Scarf turns into an ominous claw; the moment when the ghost appears to be wasting its energy begins, and the hike progresses as if nothing had happened.
The Scarf struggles to have his own identity in just those aspects where he should be most courageous. In the gaming sector, offers continue to change, suggesting different situations in each block. Amazingly, the soundtrack is in the spotlight, the tech sector is solid, and Avatar’s movements are very fluid, except that the frame rate drops slightly. It may have been a lot more, but it will still be with you for a few nights.
The first handful of games is packed with new mobility skills to help you traverse the environment. Game puzzles are no exception to this rapid advance, as almost everything is intuitive and easy to understand and has few things needed. It’s time to implement his solution. Simply remembering, picking up, and moving forward objects that are a few meters away is a common theme for most brain teasers, but enough to perform these elements to prevent loops from becoming obsolete. There are many variations.
It’s a very relaxing experience. There is no life or other means to increase gameplay tensions. In addition, there are no severe time constraints during platforming. It is a small inconvenience to fall into your ruin with a scarf in the worst case. It just returns to where it was on the verge of failure. These are game blessings that you can enjoy across the sights and sounds of vast areas. When it comes to discussing where this title lies in the broad range of the genre, it’s hard not to compare it to Thatgamecompany’s popular 2012 project Journey. Even the clothes in the game’s title are very reminiscent of what you wore on your journey. If there were a better way to put it into practice, I would be very surprised if it wasn’t a big part of the scarf-inspiring drive.
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