Could Ever Forward be the first true ‘lockdown’ game? Clearly it was made before lockdown hit, but the tale of a young girl, Maya, forced to stay inside while her mother goes out to tackle a bigger pandemic is hugely (and accidentally) resonant with our own personal lock-ins.
Not that Ever Forward spends much time inside, as it’s the set up for a much more ambitious action-puzzle game. As Maya, you escape your apartment, and begin a journey through a wasteland that looks part Bastion and part Portal. On huge floating islands, you are completing puzzles that allow you to keep progressing onward.
This looks to be a puzzler in the Turing Test and The Witness mold, where you manipulate companion-like cubes, light beams and more to construct paths. The third-person perspective sets this one a little apart, but generally you are using a fair old lump of grey matter.
We’re most enamoured with how it looks. This is an extremely picturesque game, with Pathea Games doing a fantastic job of creating serene environments, so you’ve at least got something pretty to look at while you’re stuck. It looks like there are plenty of set pieces too, as the world reacts to your attempts to solve it.
It’s not entirely clear whether Ever Forward’s world is a figment of Maya’s imagination, but we’ll likely find out when we settle down for a review. Pathea Games make it clear that Maya’s odyssey is a journey of discovery, as she must confront her fears and her past to find out what’s been buried in her psyche.
Key features include:
- Puzzles – For more than three years, our designers racked their brains, designing puzzles with the “”puzzle gamer”” in mind. Players will feel deeply challenged and motivated to solve each puzzle, and some puzzles have multiple ways of being completed to fit different kinds of thinkers and logical processes.
- The Art – A color pallet of soothing pastels and futuristic tones designed to simulate the absurd nature of the dream world.
- Adventure – Players can collect fragments of memories in the world to unlock new areas and new puzzles.
- Mechanics – Mechanics range from simple movement and jump to teleportation and gravity control; the player must use stealth and observational skills to navigate each puzzle.
Ever Forward has been out for a year or so on PC and has received very positive reviews, so we’re eager to give this one a spin.
Ever Forward is out now on Xbox One and Xbox Series X|S and starts at £12.49 from the Xbox Store. It’s also out on PS4, PS5, Switch and PC via Steam.
Game Description:
Ever Forward is an adventure puzzle game — it is the story of Maya. Maya is lost in a strange world somewhere between reality and imagination. She is alone to confront her despair on her journey of discovery, where she must unlock her memories and confront her fears to unravel the secrets of the world. Players will need to use their observational skills and intelligence to solve multiple puzzles to piece together the mystery of Maya’s past and what dark secrets she has buried.
