Developer: Alterego Games
Publisher: StickyLock Studios
Genre: Adventure, Casual
Platform: Nintendo Switch [reviewed], PC, PS4, Xbox One
Release Date: Nov 15, 2019
Price: $19.99
Woven is an interesting game that caught our attention while going through the old email inbox. The description for the game sold me on it and I knew I wanted to jump into what looked like a charming adventure game devoid of violence and conspiracy. And while this one isn’t going to win any ‘Game of the Year’ awards, Woven has a lot of heart and a lot of its shortcomings, and there are quite a few, are made up for thanks to a delightfully charming story and some really strong narration that puts some AAA titles to shame.
The gimmick of Woven is that the entire world is stitched
If you look at Woven you are going to get strong Yoshi’s Woolly World vibes. I’m pretty sure that’s intentional and that series is definitely an inspiration for the team behind the game. That said, when you take inspiration from something as gorgeous and well-realized as Yoshi’s Woolly World, you are fighting an uphill battle. As a reviewer, I have to judge the game against its contemporaries and if Woolly World is in the top of the pile Woven would be at the bottom.
Harshness aside, I didn’t hate my time playing Woven on the Nintendo Switch. It’s the perfect place for this type of game, especially for parents that want something for their young children to play without worry. The gimmick of Woven is that the entire world is stitched out of yarn and various types of fabric. This opens up a lot of avenues for visual design to go wild, and yet Woven never really takes advantage of it all that much.
This is a Unity game and because of this Woven, like many other video games on the engine, has this sort of just out of focus look. It doesn’t happen all the time but it’s enough to potentially give players a headache, especially on the Switch in handheld mode. There were points where I thought I needed new glasses. Woven isn’t an ugly game by any means, just one that looks like some person rubbed Vaseline all over it for some reason. If visuals are your jam then maybe stick the PC version, or at least play it docked.
If visuals are your jam then maybe stick the PC version, or at least play it docked
The world itself looks like any other 3D adventure game. Stages are large and there is a fair bit to do and explore, even if it often feels a bit too barren for its size. Visually there is a stitched look to everything that mostly works. The ground is made up of what looks like crocheted yarn. This runs across all the ground textures while the trees and other world items being rendered in other types of fabric. It’s all connected with stitches that give the whole game a very cute look.
Even your character, Stuffy is made up of stitched material that can be swapped out at the various change stations located across the world, but more on that a little later. It all works nicely at first but you quickly notice the limitations at hand. The yarn texture used for grass and rock is all the same. It simply repeats in a straight line without change. When it shifts into rock, it changes from green to grey with very little separation and just feels like someone used the smudge tool. In small segments this isn’t a big deal but in more open sections it lends to this sort of empty and repetitive feeling.
Where Woven is at its best visually is when there are lots of things happening in a smaller space, something that does happen later in the game quite a bit. More enclosed sections hide the limitations of the graphics and more trees, plants, buildings, and animals add much-needed depth when they happen. Woven would have been far better served if it were a smaller adventure in terms of its size instead of it losing focus in large exposed areas a lot of the time. Someone an pseudo open-world can be a hindrance to the overall design.
Woven would have been far better served if it were a smaller adventure in terms of its size
Where Woven I think nails what it sets out to do, at least for me, is in its story and how it’s told. You play as the stuffed animal Stuffy in this perfect world that becomes disrupted when bits of machinery start showing up and taking over. Early in the game you find a companion, Glitch who you spend the game with. This is a little machine sprite sort of thing that has lost his memory of what he should be doing. Clearly he was meant to change the world but without a memory he teams up with you to find out what’s going on. You also need to find your people and so the connection between the pair makes logical sense.
Along the way, you run across various machine stations that Glitch can access. When you do you are taken to a creation screen that allows you to change out parts that you have collected from completing tasks or finding along the way. You start as an elephant stuffed animal but can swap out your arms, legs, torso, or head with something else. It’s a fun feature that gets deeper as you can also collect new fabric (knitted, leather, pattern, etc.) to customize your character. It can also lead to some creepy looking stuffed animals.
But it’s more than a visual change as changing out parts means you gain the ability of the new stuffed parts you equip. You start with an elephant but early in the game come across a roadblock that requires you to punch it away. Since the elephant has the ability to stomp and is a weak puncher, you’ll need to swap out to the anteater who can punch. No, I don’t know why he can punch but you get the idea. Later you gain the ability to jump gaps and so on.
Knowing when to change is pretty easy as an icon will appear above you with the required task you need to complete. Seeing a change station nearby is also a pretty good hint that you’ll need a special ability to open a new path or activate something nearby. Both your character and Glitch have their own set of abilities that you’ll need to use in these situations. Hitting ZR will open up your characters menu of actions while ZL will open up the menu for Glitch. Each has three abilities to be used on your adventure.
It’s the voice-over work that knocks it out of the park
Woven has problems but if there is one thing that I am not iffy on it’s in the audio department. The music and sound effects are pretty standard fare but it’s the voice-over work that knocks it out of the park. There is a narrator that explains everything going on as if he were reading the story of Woven like a children’s book. His voice is simply divine and the way he rhymes and flows is incredibly relaxing and well written. He tells the story in such a charming way that you want to keep playing just to see what he says next.
As for gameplay, that’s where the game ultimately falters most. And while I find the game utterly charming I am reviewing a video game and not a meditation application. What you can do is incredibly limited. Actions are slow and there is nothing in the world that is ever really a threat or challenge with only a few puzzles strewn about. The hardest part of the game is figuring out the musical mini-game that is needed to collect new blueprints for bodies. You have to manipulate four arms so they line up on the notes across eight lines as they pass by.
You don’t have to be perfect during the music mini-game, but you can fail them if you screw up the weird melody far too much and easily hit the exit button while moving up and down. You can retry at your leisure but it does feel like a huge difficulty spike in terms of the very basic gameplay, especially if this is meant for little kids. Moving Stuffy about is fine but it does feel more like you are sliding across the world than walking on it. You don’t feel any weight to your character and you never get the feeling you are walking on yarn or even made if it. You also tend to walk sideways and often get stuck in the environment as trees and such aren’t always laid out in a logical way.
Again, I don’t dislike Woven by any means but I’d be remiss if I didn’t mention that it all just feels like a skin on top of any old indie 3D adventure game. The yarn and fabric look doesn’t feel like it was designed for the game, rather it was laid on it after the fact. Landscape in the distance looks untextured because of draw distance and the sky is just an average sky with no texturing or features hinting at a fabric world. Trees look so lovely, especially later into the game (that goes for the game in general) but this beauty is dulled as they are often just copy/pasted at random and clip in and out of the world. Partially floating assets are pretty common here.
It’s just a basic adventure game that just feels a bit too unfocused
I like the part changing parts aspect by finding new blueprints but there isn’t enough variety to what they can do. Most of the time it’s a visual thing which does add a lot of variety if you like mixing and matching your look. I would have loved more abilities tied to new blueprints and a world that changes because of them. The camera works great but too many times your character’s head shifts with the camera and will be stuck looking in a weird direction while you run. Add in a few random game crashes, something I’ve never experienced on the Switch and you can really understand the saying that “the devil is in the details.” The core idea, story, and mechanics are all here, they just forgot all the little touches that make a virtual world feel alive.
Woven isn’t the best experience and not one I can recommend when games like Yoshi’s Woolly World exist, but it is a game I want to see more of, especially if the developers can develop it deeper because there is a spark of something here. But right now it’s just a basic adventure game that just feels a bit too unfocused and unstructured to get a recommendation. But if you are looking for something laid back without any violence this one might be up your ally when a sale comes around.
I want to love Woven but it takes too many design and technical shortcuts that keep it from being special
Final Score: 2.5/5
*A code was provided for this review*
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