I’d like to introduce this game called “Tengami” today. It is an incredibly beautiful platforming game where everything looks like fine paper craft. The world and the music have a Japanese folktale-like feel, and works very well with the paper craft aesthetic.
The entire world is built in the aesthetic of pop-up paper art, and the player character looks like a piece of paper too. There is only one character in the game, and you control him to solve puzzles and revive a withered cherry blossom tree. In the game, you literally “unfold” new stages and hidden stairs by touching the screen. It’s a simple interaction, but it was exciting for me because it felt as if I were flipping through a real pop-up book.
There actually isn’t much narrative or explanation, so you never find out why your character is trying to revive the tree in the first place. As a game, it also gets a bit frustrating because the character moves so slowly. You need to move back and forth a lot to solve puzzles, but because your character moves super slow, you end up spending most of the time just watching him walk. Also, you double tap to move your character, but I think there needs to be better controls for the character. The “unfolding” interaction I mentioned above feels good, but the double tap feels rather incoherent with the visual and musical themes.
The gameplay is not the best, but overall, Tengami is an extremely pretty and delightful app. I really enjoyed the visual experience. I would recommend it!