Pity the “relaxing” games which set out to blanket their players in a wholesome fog.
You will learn quickly that nearly every area you enter as you flow downstream has the same frogs to lure and the same scattered ducklings.
Also no idea, because unlike a playground like Untitled Goose Game, Naiad gives you no checklist to steer your focus.
Naiad might be beautiful, but it’s the stale, banal beauty of landscape painting hung in the bathroom of a business hotel.
If Naiad were a simple, joyful game about wild swimming, I’d be thrilled.
Sadly, the “relaxing” games aim to envelop their players in a healthy fog. The dominant video game design philosophy, which emphasizes action, rules, obvious progression, and frequently violence, is in opposition to these subtle or minimalist experiences. Similarly, Naiad is a sometimes enjoyable riverside swim where you can sing to encourage the growth of flowers and learn poetry by interacting with butterflies, bees, birds, and other wildlife.
But here’s why I feel sorry for you. I also played those other games to decompress, with their decisive action, systemic consequences, and neck-snapping elements. Why else would I have broken all those necks? Naiad is not a more tranquil place than its peers because it lacks base pleasures, nor is it a refuge from the stressful world of video games. In fact, when it caused me to feel anything at all, it made for an experience that left me agitated and even a little nervous.
A little talking cloud introduces Naiad, a newborn water spirit of sorts, to the world by explaining the few verbs that are available, the majority of which have to do with swimming. In order to attract frogs to follow you, you can push X to propel yourself with your legs like a frog and press A to swim underwater like a fish and avoid floating obstacles like logs. The odd one out is singing, where you hold B to belt out a note in the style of Wandersong, with a pitch you can change with the analog stick.
You experiment with the surroundings by using these skills. A trail of bubbles leading to a hidden tunnel is your reward for leading frogs one by one to a group of lilypads. The tunnel will lead to a place where you will be further rewarded with a short, uninteresting poem, an animal power with minimal use, or a sunbeam where Naiad can grow a little. You will be rewarded with a thank-you message at the top of the screen if you can reunite a group of lost ducklings with their ostensibly careless duck parent.
De facto collectibles, these discoveries complete Naiad’s pause menus in a way that hints at a slight accomplishment, but this is “experiment with the environment” in the most delicate way. As you proceed downstream, you will soon discover that almost every area you enter has the same frogs to entice and the same strewn-about ducklings. The procedure remains the same when new plants and animals are added. To attract butterflies to some shining branches, sing—the notes don’t matter—and accept another poem, an essence, or a thank-you note in return. If enough of the birds in the branches sing and land on a different, glowing branch, an egg will hatch. (The young bird will draw a new bird of some sort, like a hawk, which you can pursue for some time. A Steam accomplishment. ).
There is no sense of play because of how shallow and frequently Naiad’s different elements interact with one another. The fact that you are separating your actions from their results is one aspect of the issue. In some cases, striking a string of flowers within a certain amount of time will cause a rock to shatter, creating a path; in other cases, a person will come out of a house and flip a switch, opening a gate. Not only do neither make any literal sense, but they are inconsistent enough that solutions cannot be reverse-engineered. For instance, the next time you come across a gate that is closed, you will have to break the engine of a motorboat in order to open it.
It’s arbitrary in a way that completely defies puzzle solving, and it makes overcoming every challenge seem like busywork. You just do what is available to you in any given situation, rather than considering a problem and coming up with a solution. You do everything that is possible if there are a lot of options. If there aren’t any options, you do what I did, which is to play the game like a robot vacuum cleaner, going over each patch twice and running into every corner.
I’m not sure if hitting those flowers is necessary for me to advance. Since Naiad doesn’t provide you with a checklist to help you focus, unlike a playground like Untitled Goose Game, I’m not sure if I need to hit them at all. Instead, all it says on its menus is that there are still things to learn, which makes me nervous that I might be missing something. This isn’t at all soothing.
As evidenced by their hidden places in the menus, I still missed a few things despite being guided by this anxiety. Whatever those things are, I already know I won’t go back to find them because I’m probably just going to have to herd more frogs. I’m trying to guide those fucking frogs toward the lilypad, but they keep jumping onto every other surface. Naiad seems to want you to move through it as slowly or quickly as you like, but when I’m awkwardly moving physics objects or herding metaphorical cats, I can’t get into a flow state. When Naiad gave me the hard logic of a nonogram puzzle, I would instantly enter a flow state, similar to how I would enter a warm bath, making me yearn for the tangible over the ambiguous.
At this point, you’ve seen enough screenshots to realize that Naiad is, at the very least, stunning. Perhaps the best part is when you completely release the controller and, after a minute or so, the camera moves away from your protagonist to reveal snippets of the surroundings. With its bushes that appear to breathe with the wind and its light-dappled water, each frame is a painting in motion.
This is Gris territory, though, of a beauty that is “terribly, painfully obvious,” as Alice used to describe that game. Despite Naiad’s beauty, it’s the stale, banal beauty of a landscape painting that hangs in a business hotel’s restroom. It’s the kind of beauty that is incompatible with emotion, and it isn’t enhanced by a ploddingly predictable plot or emotional beats.
I was thinking a lot about Anne Dillard’s Pilgrim at Tinker Creek while I was playing. It is a nonfiction narrative book with no plot but is jam-packed with endless descriptions of nature.
Finally, I found myself kneeling on the winter-killed grass of the island, lost, and in a daze, gazing at the frog in the creek that was only four feet away. Dillard describes him as “a very small frog with wide, dull eyes.”. And as I turned to face him, he started to sag and crumple. As though extinguished, the spirit disappeared from his eyes. His skull appeared to fall and settle like a kicked tent as his skin drooped and emptied. Like a football losing air, he was getting smaller in front of me. I observed his shoulders’ taut, glossy skin ruck, rumple, and fall. A monstrous and terrifying thing, a portion of his skin, as formless as a punctured balloon, soon lay in floating folds on top of the water like bright scum. I was horrified and gaped. Behind the drained frog, an oval shadow hung in the water before gliding away. The bag made of frog skin began to sink. “..”.
Although Dillard’s poetic portrayal of nature makes room for nature’s cruelty and finds a way to discuss emotions and themes that are difficult to access otherwise, I’m not so irritated by Naiad’s frogs that I want to watch them devoured like a milkshake by a passing giant water bug. For it, it is more revitalizing. By itself, the rhythm of “ruck, and rumple, and fall” can keep me going for days. Both literally and figuratively, Naiad’s poetry makes no room for anything. The depth of these waters is shallow.
When people show up, that’s when Naiad comes closest to saying anything at all. These big jerks are destroying trees and keeping a bear from sleeping in a cave by loudly mining for gems. As usual, you, as Naiad, can stop them by singing to draw attention to them. There is absolutely nothing you can do to stop them from polluting the world with their towns and cars. For a moment, this self-satisfied, fairy tale moralizing made me question if I had misunderstood Naiad; perhaps this is a kid’s game after all. However, I am aware of no youngster who would not still find such trite sentimentalism uninteresting. Once more, I considered all the previous works that use nature as a theme and to tell parables. The children who adore Tove Jansson’s Moomin books are well aware that winter will arrive, the amazing squirrel will perish, and Little My will want to make clothes out of its tail.
I worry that the majority of reviewers will at least generally view Naiad favorably (“Sumptuous.”. As much as I would like to act like I am just too bold and brave to fall for its wholesome charms, I want to make it clear that I am not attempting to be contrarian. ” – 3 stars) and many players. I’m here to chew gum and kick the ass of non-violent games, but I’m out of gum. I’m the Pauline Kael of vibes and the Lester Bangs of cozy games. ).
No, the reason I’m here is because I adored the equally beautiful game Abzu, which is about exploring a lush underwater world. I finished all of Abzu’s Journey-style puzzle environments before staying to play with the animals and tinker with the plants, or simply to take in the breathtaking scenery. Along with a dozen other mildly humorous relax ’em ups, I also really enjoyed Journey and A Short Hike. In general, I support games that limit the player’s verb choices in order to promote a more reflective experience. I would be overjoyed if Naiad were a straightforward, happy game about crazy swimming.
Returning to my opening statement, one of Naiad’s issues is that if you want to make “relaxing” the most explicit aspect of your game, it must be more calming than other types of games. What else remains? In Naiad’s case, the response is both insufficient and excessive.
It feels cruel to lash out at Naiad in a world that is already terrible with more explicit games in every sense of the word and relatively few games about swimming and saving ducklings. However, its difference from other games is insufficient.
Yes, Naiad can be nice at times. Some will commend it for having the notes in the correct order, and it’s an easy-to-listen acoustic cover of a song. That type of muzak may be soothing to them, but it just makes me feel like I’m waiting.
