It isn’t often that game developers take a direct approach with their games. Attempting to reach through the screen and bring the player to be the character rather than playing as the character is something that is hard to pull off. Waking by Jason Oda and brought to us by tinyBuild that does just that with this emotional action adventure title. It all starts with the free demo on Steam. As you lay in a coma, you must choose whether to succumb to death or fight for your life using the only thing you have left: your memories and the feelings they give you.
Gameplay
After showing you lying in a hospital bed, you transition into a strange world with peaceful music playing. Here is where you first control your player as you make your way through a short, winding path leading into a strange temple with a large dead tree. A gate opens and you are meant to go through it to a small portal. This will be a repeating theme of how the game leads you into the various levels of each section.
The demo let us roam through a few different world types. It seems that each one has their own theme and memory, or feeling, of focus. Starting with the acceptance or refusal of death and moving forward through a series of memories. Each area has a boss at the end of it and once you defeat them you find a shrine that asks you a personal question, such as “What struggles did you face in life?” These questions will provide a series of answers to pick from and they certainly seem to matter to your experience, so be honest.
Combat is a mixture of melee and telekinesis though. While the telekinesis didn’t seem to have a limit to its use, it was not always the most effect way to fight beyond stunning the enemy. You will be told to collect one of your three emotions, each correlating to choices made during the personal question segments, and then use your emotions to power your ability to use melee attacks or abilities. Each of these emotions have their own strength and duration count as well, making some more powerful than others - which is fitting.
Probably the part that really got me realizing how emotional they are taking this game was the last section of the demo. There is a cutscene that reoccurs where an angel is by your hospital bedside and asks you to close your eyes. The screen goes black at this point and they really want you, the player, to close your eyes during this moment. She then asks you to recall a memory from your past, such as a pet for the first one, and really gets to you feel that memory. Then directly after this, you got a farm area and inside the barn the same shrine-like style of selection will appear that will have you pick what your animal was and what it most looked like. This animal then becomes your companion on your journey and will actually help you fight! It was surreal seeing my childhood dog who passed away join my side, even if it was obviously just a game and not really even a dog, the combination of them bringing you into that memory and then giving you the pet as a companion is gonna hit you in the feels.
Expectations
This game started off with small emotions and hits you hard with the moment it gives you your past pet as a companion. This is only the beginning of what is looking to be a truly emotional journey. I can see them finding and selecting memories that are going to really get players feelings their past emotions again while both understanding and accepting death just a little bit better.
I would like the overall movement and environment control to be improved on. While they do a decent job, the controls need some tightening to really flow smoothly and the environment is just too easy to jump over invisible walls and explore out of bounds. These improvements would really turn the game around even more and make us appreciate the journey itself better.
Conclusion
Waking wants to provide an emotional journey and they are on track to doing just that. The demo itself brought out some of the feelings from past memories already and it seemed like the game was just getting started. It does a great job putting me in the shoes of the player and making it less of a game to playthrough and the characters journey to make it more of my own journey through this unique emotional experience.
