I’ve recently got my hands on a 10 minute demo of the shadow and light based puzzle game Iris.Fall. Developed by Next Studio, Iris.Fall is the tale of a young girl, who after waking from a mysterious dream, follows a black cat into an old abandoned theatre. As she explores and uses light and shadow to progress through the labyrinthine old theatre she starts to realise that everything in the theatre is connected to herself somehow.
The demo starts off with a few animated cut-scenes, showing Iris, chasing the aforementioned cat into the theatre. At this point, I fell in love with the visuals. Black and white are the colours of choice, but there are muted tones playing their part as well. It’s striking and it drew me in.
Once through the cut-scenes, we were into the game and into the first puzzle, a missing part of the staircase. Sure, the cat Iris is following leaps effortlessly over it but not for her, she needs to find another way. Luckily there’s another bit of pathway elsewhere that’s throwing its shadow on to the wall, and this shadow path looks complete and walkable. If only Iris was a shadow”¦
Well, at certain points in the game, that is exactly what she can do, turn into a shadow. I turned Iris into a shadow, walked across the shadow path, and then become corporeal again once on the other side, now able to continue chasing after the cat.
Without spoiling any more puzzles for you, the basic premise of this first puzzle is played out on the remaining ones. In order to continue through the theatre you need to pick up and/or use objects in corporeal form, that will manipulate the light and shadows of the level creating new paths through or access to other areas of the level.
Light and dark are not the only puzzle elements, even in the demo there are puzzles that require different forms of resolution. There is one puzzle where you need to use a variety of fixed-angled rods in order to complete an electrical circuit, or my favourite, change the positions of two (moderately freaky) puppets.
With only this preview demo to go by, I’m certainly intrigued with Iris.Fall. I love the art and animation style, and the puzzles I’ve seen fit perfectly with this style. Whether or not this holds out on the longer term, we will have to see.
Iris.Fall is due for release November 2018. Stay tuned for more information on Iris.Fall when we have it, alternatively head over to the official Iris.Fall Steam page.
