FORM

I was browsing list of games on Steam again and came across FORM which had a teaser that caught my eye: "Enter a surreal adventure where puzzles are built from dreams and memories. Solve the mystery behind an ancient artifact. Advance through a world that transforms around you. Transcend this existence."

A few minutes later I was standing in the middle of the night, trees around me, feeling chilly and staring at the game's menu. I created a new game and appeared in front of Dr. Eli's workspace. Dr. Eli is examining an ancient artifact and is on the bring of a discovery. You as Dr. Eli manage to somehow synchronize with the artifact and you wake up in your own mind where ideas can be read. Here you solve puzzles and eventually meet another sentient being.

The game is beautiful. The visuals are simply mesmerizing. The objects you manipulate are very well crafted and feel very solid even though you can't really touch them. As a player you can't walk around, you just appear in front of your puzzle and what you need you can reach (or bring it to yourself). After each step of a puzzle is complete the environment changes a bit and new part of the object/puzzle is shown to you. All the animations showing new stuff are pretty neat. They are visually pleasing and the sound that accompanies it is great. The soundtrack made me feel a bit strange though.

As for the story, I wouldn't even call it a story. It doesn't really have an ending or any kind of resolution. We don't learn anything about Dr. Eli, nor his wife. While the voice acting and intro are good the rest simply doesn't exist. I wish I would have found out more about Dr. Eli, his past or his personality. We don't even know what the artifact is, where it came from and who the unknown beings are. This way all I can say is that I was very disappointed because I expected at least some kind of a basic story.

Game play seemed to me similarly lacking. The puzzles are mostly of one kind and that is match two objects together. The puzzles become rather repetitive. They are not hard but it still takes time to manipulate everything. Sometimes you have to look through a blue ball to see more information but that's about it. In the second room you have to play certain melodies. Be it either by sound or color which was even less entertaining even though it sounded cool. If this game was supposed to be a puzzle game I'd expect a certain variety of puzzles and something that actually requires you to think a little (sometimes).

The game is short. I finished it in 77 minutes which included me staring at the different environments and doing some nonsense with objects producing light. While I enjoyed doing that it was the only thing I could do, since you can't walk around. To sum it up, the game is visually breathtaking. It's a bit dark and blurry but atmosphere is great. The soundtrack and sound effects are great and make you feel more otherworldly. Animations are great to look at and while the game gives you all the time in the universe to solve a puzzle there is some kind of a fast paced flow to how everything moves shifts around. I liked that. Story is nowhere to be found. Game play is simple, tedious and repetitive. Nothing to actually enjoy.

I would recommend this game to someone who wants to see what is possible in VR when it comes to abstract things but only if they just want to try to manipulate some objects and enjoy what they do under their hands (meaning have no expectations of game content). Otherwise I'd say this game is not worth its full price and I wouldn't recommend it.

S'Tsung (stsungjp @ Twitter)