Iris.Fall is where gothic horror meets puzzles. Developed by Next Studios and authored by PM Studios, Iris.Fall is a haunting and beautifully crafted puzzle adventure game having a melancholic soundtrack. In the developer’s page, “Next Studios aims to create differentiated, high quality, and reputable games…We experiment with new designs, create new experiences, research new technologies, work across platforms and game genres, to understand more about future possibilities in gaming like a unique media, and keep pushing the boundaries.” And boy does Iris.Fall deliver.
Initially released on the PC via Steam on December 7, 2023, Iris.Fall is now visiting console, and like most puzzle games, it’s an ideal match for that Nintendo Switch. Hanging around, you play as Iris, who has just awakened from a dream. Iris then follows a black cat right into a dilapidated theater, traveling backwards and forwards via a strange labyrinth of sunshine and shadow. As the story unfolds, Iris knows that all things in this theater seems to be linked to her. As you make your way with the game, not only do you discover inventive mechanics, but additionally a heartfelt and emotional story that uses the melancholy of gothic stories to its advantage.
A stark gray-washed color-palette creates an atmospheric tone for Iris.Fall while the background music lulls you. On the visual level, this is one of the most beautiful games I’ve took part in some time. While some aspects of the environment feel near to real, if perhaps stretched to the common fantasy distortion, others seem like they’re pages from a pop-up book. The 3D environments are beautiful to check out, even when they're sometimes difficult to traverse. The world of Iris.Fall is whimsical, dark, mysterious, and honestly, a little bit creepy. This is facilitated by dolls, marionettes, mannequins, and how the art team has aged the theater with paper peeling in the walls and holes in the floor.
A puzzle adventure game with 2D and 3D elements, some of the level traversals could be frustrating. At least while playing on a Switch Lite. The primary issue is that while the setting is beautiful, it's hard to gauge depth, which makes it difficult sometimes to know what areas you are able to walk further into and which ones you can’t.
That said, the good thing about the amount design isn’t only when you’re engaging in the planet in a 3D sense. By utilizing light and shadow as a core concept, Iris engages in the world in 2 ways. Although some challenges are carried out real life, a 3D setting, others need you to be a shadow yourself. As a shadow, you should use environmental surroundings differently, using the shadows of objects within the foreground to produce a path that you should progress through puzzles and platforms. This means that you often solve puzzles requiring moving aspects of the world around you after which switching your perspective to some 2D shadow to progress.
In truth, 3D to 2D puzzle-solving is one of my favorite game mechanics. This causes you to definitely think of the level in multiple ways and increases the difficulty. That said, the number of times the player must switch between Iris to Shadow Iris for one puzzle can sometimes be tedious. Additionally, the training curve for getting accustomed to environmental surroundings and making use of tools and items that you choose up is hard and was clearly first made to be drag-and-drop having a mouse. For instance, in the second puzzle of the game, you’re required to develop a circuit board. As the first two are pretty straight forward, the third posed a small challenge because of how the wires auto-lock onto circuits. As i knew the answer to the puzzle, I fumbled through moving the pieces around since it was hard to ask them to auto-lock onto the appropriate element of the puzzle.
Another small gripe I have with Iris.Fall is that it’s too beautiful to experience on this type of small screen just like a Switch Lite or a Switch not docked, which removes the ability to play it on a handheld. With intricate environments and movement from Iris, you will find issues with distortion on this type of small screen. While this is an easy fix by docking your Switch, I wouldn’t tell listen to it about this platform if you have only a Switch Lite.
Overall, Iris.Fall is a phenomenal game. It’s gorgeous, emotive, and not exhaustively long. It’s an immersive game that aims to combine a somber tone with an innovative design. While there are several tedious moments and fewer than ideal elements that don’t map to controllers well over a mouse, this isn’t enough to really make it a game title to pass through on. Having found success on PC, I’m excited for fans of the genre to experience Iris.Fall on their consoles. For the beautiful world and score alone, this is one game that I want much more of.
Iris.Fall is available now on PC via Steam and will also be available o Playstation 4, Xbox One, and Nintendo Turn on January 7, 2023.
