I enjoyed my time with “Toem,” laughed at its jokes, but I didn’t take anything away from the experience.Īlmost every puzzle in the game is solved by taking pictures using the protagonist’s camera. I took a couple of pictures of it, then turned right back around and descended the mountain. Photo Courtesy of SteamĮven when seeing the toem at the end of the game, I was surprised and impressed by the visual spectacle, but the player character looks on blankly without any reaction. Taking pictures of every animal and filling out a compendium of creatures is a fun side activity that spans the length of the game. Helping the other characters ostensibly helps the player with progressing their adventure, but the use of stamps as a metric of progression left me feeling disconnected from the accomplishment. These characters are fun, like a news editor who demands pictures of the most newsworthy thing in town (his own mustache), but at no point is an effort made to tie the experience together. Characters are introduced, each with a problem that needs solving, and then they give the player a stamp, none stick around or influence any greater storyline. In fact, there is no real narrative throughline. Where I found myself struggling with the story is that after the brief introduction where the player is sent off to see toem, it’s never mentioned again. Reaching the toem is the central objective of the game and its protagonist. To get there, players have to complete tasks and favors for people throughout each environment to earn stamps to redeem for free bus rides. The player controls a nameless being of uncertain species who is given a camera and sent on their way to see the toem by their mother, who made the same trip when she was young. It’s not made clear what exactly a toem is until the final moments of the game when the player does get to see it. “Toem” is about a low-stakes adventure to see the titular toem, described as a natural phenomenon. It’s very cute, it’s got fun characters with silly problems, but its lack of a real core storyline really left me wanting more. I enjoyed “Toem,” but not as much as I expected to. I picked up “Toem” because I heard it had similar vibes. Perhaps my favorite of these games is “A Short Hike,” which was released in 2019, could be completed in less than two hours, and followed a bird who has to climb a mountain to get reception for their phone. I love the cute little indie games about going on a walk and meeting nice people. I have a real soft spot for the developing sub-genre of wholesome video games. Platform: PlayStation 5, Nintendo Switch, PC
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