A seed drops to the floor, and from it your character is born. That’s all the introduction you get. The game leaves you to piece everything together by observing the world around you and forming your own interpretation, much like the protagonist himself, who never utters a single word.
After following the only available path, you reach the first set of puzzles, which naturally introduces the game’s core mechanics. At first, you have no special abilities. You can only push objects and interact with levers, which leads into the familiar puzzle concept of pressure switches that require something heavy to stay pressed.
A few minutes later, you unlock your first ability. It allows you to summon a heavy block that can be placed on switches or thrown into water to create a path across. You can have up to two blocks active at the same time, and summoning a third causes the oldest one to disappear. It’s a simple mechanic, but it’s only one of four main abilities you'll eventually unlock, and together they make the puzzles consistently enjoyable to solve.
The story itself remains mysterious. In general, you're chasing someone who looks exactly like you, except they're your opposite, either black or white, depending on your current form. This duality is woven into both the narrative and the visual design. The monochrome art style is surprisingly beautiful, filled with small environmental details that keep each area distinct. Combined with incredibly fluid animations that never feel like they've cut corners, the whole world has a striking amount of personality.
The game is divided into several interconnected screens that you can usually explore quite freely, although the path forward is rarely difficult to identify. The opening section focuses on teaching each ability through its own compact puzzle dungeon. During these segments, you can only equip a single power, and after completing the dungeon you're returned to the main area, where that newly acquired ability allows you to unlock new paths.
As for the powers themselves, after the block ability you gain a drone that can fly through air vents, a claw that lets you pull objects toward you or latch onto surfaces to swing across gaps, a ball that captures small critters so they can be transported where they're needed, and perhaps the most interesting power of all, the ability to switch between black and white forms. Certain platforms, objects, and even entire paths only exist in one color.
While learning these abilities, you'll notice that each one comes from a pedestal marked with its own unique glyph. At first, this seems like simple decoration, but its purpose becomes clear once you reach the second major area. Here you will encounter numerous pedestals displaying different combinations of glyphs, visually indicating which powers they grant. This is where the game opens up considerably, allowing you to equip two abilities at the same time.
The game also becomes much less restrictive. Instead of guiding you directly toward the solution, it expects you to decide which combination of powers will help you progress. There are often several objectives available simultaneously, giving you the freedom to choose which one to tackle first.
Thankfully, it never becomes frustrating because discovering the area's map reveals icons that clearly indicate which combination of abilities is needed for each puzzle. Even better, the powers complement each other in creative ways. You can throw the critter-catching ball onto your drone and fly it to collect creatures, while combining the block ability with the black-and-white mechanic allows you to kick blocks into otherwise unreachable places.
Overall, the game features three major open areas. The first contains five puzzle dungeons that introduce the core abilities, while the second and third each feature ten more. These puzzle dungeons serve as the game's primary objective because completing them rewards you with glyphs that gradually fill the ground where your journey first began, the very spot where your character sprouted from a tiny seed.
One of my favorite features is the collection of arcade machines scattered throughout the world. These are actually your primary objective before entering most dungeons because interacting with them opens doors, activates elevators, drains flooded passages, or performs some other action that reveals the dungeon entrance. What makes them especially memorable, though, are the platforming challenges inside them.
Each arcade stage begins at the bottom, and your goal is to climb to the top by jumping over hazards, crossing gaps, and scaling ladders in a style that feels like a love letter to classic arcade platformers. The hazards inside each stage are themed around the nearby dungeon. A critter dungeon has you avoiding the creatures you've been catching, while the block and black-and-white dungeon features falling blocks and disappearing platforms that only exist in one color. Every puzzle dungeon has its own arcade challenge, and each one includes both a normal and a much tougher hard mode.
The arcade machines are all interconnected, so once you've activated one, you can replay any previously unlocked stage from any other machine. They also allow you to enter secret codes found throughout the world, whether hidden in obscure locations or tucked away inside collectible images. It's a clever system that rewards curiosity and encourages you to pay close attention to your surroundings.
Secrets themselves come in the form of scattered pieces of paper that gradually assemble into complete illustrations once collected. There are several of these images, and some hide clues or secrets of their own. If you discover a valid code and enter it correctly, you'll unlock cheats for the arcade platforming sections, such as a double jump. Finally, while the game thankfully allows you to revisit earlier areas at any time, there is one annoyance that never quite goes away. Every time you want to change your equipped powers, you have to return all the way back to the main hub. It isn't a huge flaw, but after enough backtracking, it definitely starts to wear on your patience.
