SHOUT OUT - Paper Trail’s unique approach to visual and puzzle design make it stand out for the right reasons
Fold a path forward.
By Jonathan Garrett
17/04/24
NOTE: thatHITBOX Shout Out’s are not sponsored content. They’re games, developers, individuals, or issues that we want to highlight and share purely out of interest.
After the jolliness of Media Molecule’s Tearaway, there seemed to be nothing else that could top the whimsy and welcoming vibes of that delightful little envelope adventure. But now, the “folding” genre is about to expand once more, as Newfangled Games is prepped and ready to drop Paper Trail on May 21st 2024. That’s right. If Kojima can coin the phrase “strand game” for his delivery opus, then we feel it’s important to trailblaze a term of our own.
There’s so much here that caught our eye, even though puzzle games have historically never consistently engaged us. The sheer design creativity on show more than compensates for any perceived lack of ability on our part, which incidentally is precisely why we tend to avoid games of this type, because we can never figure them out.
The well implemented voice acting and narrative maturity suggests a focused experience, with a central mechanic that directly impacts your progression and character arc. Given that cutsences are also interactive, and require an element of puzzle solving to progress, there is bound to be significant escalation to the challenge offered as you progress.
It’s also particularly noteworthy given the multiple simultaneous releases on PC, Xbox One, Series X / S, PS4, PS5, Switch and Netflix, which from a logistical standpoint is no small feat given the size of the dev team. Therefore, an indie studio producing something like this with such confidence deserves a nod of recognition.
TARPS?
At the bottom of some of our articles, you’ll see a series of absurd looking images (with equally stupid, in joke laden names). These are the TARP badges, which represent our ‘Totally Accurate Rating Platform’. They allow us to identify specific things, recognise positive or negative aspects of a games design, and generally indulge our consistent silliness with some visual tomfoolery.
