The second chapter features a wide ocean environment, and the third is a mystery that players must solve for themselves. The first chapter takes place in a forest (where you enter a Japanese temple by flipping a page), and the game's gorgeous art is dazzlingly implemented.
The team scanned real paper to use as textures in the 3D world they created, and the look turned out just great. But much of the game's charm is in its beauty. One section features a maze puzzle, where you needed to flip sections of the page up and down in exactly the right way to try and open a path for the samurai to continue through. Turn the page yet again and you're suddenly brought into a larger, rocky outcropping, where you can tap around to send the samurai exploring. Turn the page again (subtle glowing prompts to let you know when a transition is ready), and the scene changes slightly, as the samurai's tree slowly starts to fade away. In this case, it's a samurai sitting quietly beneath a small tree. Then turn the first page and, just like in a real pop-up book, the folded "paper" image slowly opens to reveal itself. The game begins on just a book, and you drag across the screen to flip it open. The game takes place inside a pop-up book and tells a Japanese fairy tale through exploration and mood rather than written words. Schneidereit told me that "Tengami" means something akin to "heavenly paper" in Japanese, and that's a fitting title for this one. It's moody and subtle, and felt like the kind of peaceful, quiet game that invites introspection (unfortunately the crowded room was too noisy for me to hear the game). Schneidereit kindly stopped by for a quick talk with me at GDC, to show off the game and say we can expect it this summer.
#Tengami app mac#
Now, it's finally coming to the Mac and iOS. Since then, it has been honored with awards at Indiecade and the Tokyo Game Show. They started work on their first title, Tengami, about two years ago. That same group of three later created their own company, Nyamyam games. But I wanted more: more depth, more interaction, more complexity a hero's journey with more at stake than flowers.Jennifer Schneidereit is one of three developers who worked with legendary game developers Rare on Kinect Sports. I can understand it as a slow game played to relax, a complete thing to be enjoyed and absorbed the same way you might watch a film on a weekend. I can see it as a meditative experience, in which the puzzles are rewarding tests of patience and mindfulness for the player. I don't think everyone will feel this way about Tengami, at all. The minimalist environments start to feel sparse and unpopulated. But after a while, the deliberate steps start to feel slow. As the game begins, I can feel my breathing slow and my world narrow into this calm little measured space, the character's deliberate steps, the sounds and the gorgeous colours of the game helping to pull me in. It's trying for a calm, meditative state, a variation on a Saturday morning sort of "lying on the sofa with a cup of tea not doing anything very much" feeling. There's a specific mood that Tengami is trying to create in its players, I suspect, and it's not one I'm good at sustaining.
#Tengami app code#
When I realise I must solve a code that is going to involve a significant amount of backtracking, I decide to go do something else for a while. I find myself double tapping on the screen to walk through a (beautiful, but minimal) area for the third time and then having to stop myself from playing Threes on my phone while the walking animation plays. I find myself sighing with mild disappointment at the third instance of the same puzzle mechanic. It suffers from some of the same constraints as a real pop-up book: the interactions are generally obvious and limited in scope.
I don't want to dislike Tengami, because it is so beautiful to look at and to listen to, because it is crafted with so much delicacy and love, and because it ought to be so restful to play.
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