Paper Beast
Developer/publisher Pixel Reef Format PSVR Release Out now
PSVR
Now we know how Lester Chaykin felt. Granted, we’ve not experienced anything as dramatic as Another World’s protagonist ripping a hole in the space-time continuum and teleporting himself to an alien planet. But we too find ourselves suddenly transported to a strange and barren land, feeling similarly awestruck and not a little frightened. It’s not long before we realise that this place isn’t nearly so hostile – at least not to us. We may have arrived in the shadow of a towering creature, but it’s benign: the gentlest of giants. Gnarled and spindly, it’s something like a skeletal version of the Pokémon Dialga: the title might suggest it’s made from paper, but it seems to be made from bone, studded with tiny jewels of rock. As it lumbers on, we’re struck by how powerful and yet how fragile it seems – and fascinated enough to follow its lead. Like us, you’ll be surprised at where it takes you.
Éric Chahi’s latest game, in other words, has at least as much in common with his most famous creation as with his last. The dynamic environmental manipulation of From Dust returns, and in Paper Beast’s sandbox mode, you again get to play god, forming mountains and rivers and summoning storms to see how this simulated universe and its inhabitants respond to natural disasters of your own making. But for the most part, it’s about working out the rules of a world unlike our own to figure out a way forward, albeit with much lower stakes – a failed experiment or bodged action here won’t result in your avatar’s death. It turns out you’re exploring an abstract ecosystem spawned from lost data (look up to the skies and you’ll see the pink clouds forming numbers), though any story elements are consciously left open to interpretation. The focus, rather, is on the experience of existing in a world that combines organic and man-made elements, and the ways in which you directly and indirectly influence it.
The most transformative effects come from the beasts themselves, albeit often as a result of your prompting. Many resemble origami models, assembled with geometric precision yet chaotic and unruly now they’ve been given life. Your controller (or two if you’re using Move, though for once there’s little difference) effectively becomes an invisible fishing line: you’ll uproot the odd plant, but you mostly use it to grab these creatures, bringing them closer to get a better look, or shunting them away. By studying their behaviour and combining them with one another or the various flora scattered around these desolate lands, you learn exactly what they’re capable of.
At first, you simply want to study them because they’re so beguiling to watch. One is a tangle of paper ribbons, halfway between a cheerleader’s pom-pom and the clumpy mass you pull out when emptying a shredder; another has seemingly unspooled from a reelto-reel tape deck. You discover stark contrasts between the colourful predators (which are impossible to wrangle without assistance) and their papery prey, which can be easily dragged and flung around, making them feel more delicate and vulnerable still – and leaving you all the keener to protect them.
So yes, you can indulge in acts of casual callousness, but in the main you’ll want to use your powers to benevolent ends, since that’s how you progress. In many cases, paper trees will sprout up where animals gather to mewl and low. Usually, it’s your job to shepherd them there, creating bridges and paths, perhaps, or protecting them from inclement weather or prowling predators. In the latter case you need to find an effective distraction, luring them towards plants that have a narcoleptic effect, or else tethering them to heavy objects to limit their reach as you guide the weaker creatures to safety.
Elsewhere, the environment itself is the problem, and in some cases there’s more than one way to solve it. In one area, crab-like creatures use plant stems to drag balls of sand, which you can push up a slippery slope to help clumsy quadrupeds reach the top – rolling the ball in the sand yourself to make it larger and cover more ground when you splat it back down. Or you could harness the dirt-scattering power of a spinning plant that resembles a large sycamore seed to aid their grip. The mop-like ends of a large worm represent another option, as it sucks up a sand pile from one end and excretes it out of the other. It might seem a highminded game, but it’s hardly shy of playful touches, not least during an impromptu parade soundtracked by bouncy J-pop. Or when a tree bursts into life, sprouting tiny pods that you quickly discover function like Metal Gear Solid’s Fulton recovery balloons.
Its languid pace gives you time to make mistakes and recover from them, though while the pressure increases when the predators show up, the most stressful moments are down to the fussy nature of some objectives. One puzzle, involving finding a way for lightweight quadrupeds to negotiate a storm-blown clifftop, is fiddly to the point of exasperation. And while the lack of direction is often an asset, there are one or two occasions where we’re left feeling lost, and not in a good way, where our immediate objective would seem to be apparent yet our destination isn’t at all clear.
Still, we’re prepared to forgive Chahi and his team these rare slips. Captivating and uncanny, Paper Beast is a rare one: a distinctively weird game that’ll stick with you long after your brain has filtered out the little hiccups and frustrations. It’s a minor miracle that, amid the real world’s information overload, a game about big data can leave us feeling overwhelmed for entirely the right reasons. We may not return for a while, but we’re left with memories that will linger – of one more unforgettable trip to another world.
For the most part, it’s about working out the rules of a world unlike our own to figure out a way forward