Paper Trail review

• Reviews by Brian Hobbs
• Published:

Paper-folding adventure covers a thin story with a charming storybook-styled presentation and noteworthy puzzles

I try to steer clear of papercraft, as these clumsy hands possess less-than-fine motor skills. My creases are crooked, the gifts I wrap are typically tucked away at the back of the Christmas tree, and we should all be thankful that my paper airplanes carry no passengers. In spite of that, or maybe because of it, I found the paper-folding mechanic of Paper Trail to be satisfyingly tactile, allowing me to fold and unfold the colorful, top-down 2D world in nice straight lines with the calming sound of softly crinkling paper. While it’s not the first game to use such a mechanic (see A Fold Apart, for example), Newfangled Games’ origami-inspired puzzle-adventure, featuring a young woman on something like a magical coming-of-age journey, is infused with enough artistry and solid level design that it feels genuinely fresh. Your enjoyment may ultimately come down to how much you like grid-based traversal puzzles, as its story and exploration aren’t meaty enough to be their own draw, but the overall feel and presentation are so imaginative and pleasant, I never tired of seeing how each new level would unfold.

You play as Paige (of course you do), who lives in the town of Southfold (of course she does), is quite adept at origami (of course she is), and has just been accepted to university to study astrophysics (of course she–wait, what?). Trouble is, her “fuddy-duddy” parents have decided that she should stay in her hometown, where things are safe and predictable. Predictably, Paige will have none of that, and runs away to pursue her academic ambitions. When you see all of the caves, swamps, treetops, and ancient ruins she has to navigate just to get to college, you kind of wonder if her parents have a point, but it does make for some fun and varied environments to puzzle your way through.

That’s not to say there’s any danger, unless you scratch your head too hard trying to solve the tricky, maze-like levels. Progression is almost entirely linear, comprised of distinct areas that are broken up into single-screen brainteasers. At each screen, your goal is simple: make like a chicken and get to the other side. You can point-and-click to guide Paige, or use a keyboard or controller, and she will walk along a grid of paths, bridges, and ladders in pursuit of the next screen. The route, naturally, is never clear, so she will need to summon help from the other side – of the page, that is. For narrative reasons never satisfactorily explained, Paige can peel back the edges of her environment to uncover a parallel world on the back side, like the Upside-Down in Stranger Things, but with fewer preteen-eating monsters.

This underside has additional paths and features you’ll need to progress. To get to them, you click and grab the edges or the corner of the “paper” and drag it over the rest of the level to reveal what’s underneath and join it to the top side. This might complete a path, reveal a switch, or connect wires to power an object. Each area introduces a new mechanic to vary up the gameplay. While rotating bridges, pushing statues, and directing beams of light may not exactly scream originality, these additions open up the possibilities just enough to add layers of challenge and keep you thinking in new ways. A handy right-click allows you to see what’s on the flip-side of the page so that you don’t have to fold and unfold just to see what’s there. That said, unless you’re particularly good at spatial visualization, you’ll probably do a lot of trial-and-error anyway, because it can be hard to fully predict what any given fold will allow you to see and do.

Paper Trail

Genre:	Fantasy
Presentation:	2D or 2.5D
Theme:	Coming of age
Perspective:	Third-Person
Graphic Style:	Stylized
Gameplay:	Environmental puzzler
Control:	Point-and-click
Game Length:	Medium (5-10 hours)
Difficulty:	Medium

There’s a built-in hint system that can help nudge you in the right direction by revealing, one at a time, the sequence of folds needed to complete the level, but I found that the game holds just the right amount of difficulty to fire your neurons without being so taxing as to keep you stuck in one place for too long. For those who want an extra challenge, there are origami animals scattered throughout the levels that serve as optional puzzles, though there’s no particular extrinsic reward for doing so beyond a handful of achievements. All told, I was able to finish the game and collect all the origami in about eight hours, so there’s plenty of gameplay to sink your teeth into, though I would have liked to see a more open-ended structure to allow for exploring side paths or tackling a different puzzle if you get stuck on one.

While Paper Trail leans heavily on the “puzzle” side of puzzle-adventure, there are characters you’ll meet in each location that add a little flavor, such as a lost and weary traveler who’s long been stuck in a cavern, children catching frogs for their grandmother’s tea, or an archaeologist exploring ancient ruins. While they don’t directly affect the gameplay, their presence livens up the journey as they reveal bits of their own stories and make comments on your efforts, babbling along to their speech bubble text in a whimsical gibberish.

In between each area, a fully voiced Paige will give a storybook-like narration that transitions between one location and another while also providing backstory that sheds light on her family and the events that took place before her recent departure. These are interactive, requiring you to flip and fold the paper as new images appear and combine to help tell the tale. It’s a creative approach to storytelling, and each time more details emerged, I felt like it was leading up to some kind of big character growth moment. However, while it touches on emotional topics and is lightly moving, there’s ultimately not much arc to the narrative, and the ending doesn’t wrap up in a truly satisfying way, leaving Paige mostly unchanged and the player guessing a bit as to the significance of some of the details introduced.

What the game may lack in story, it mostly makes up in atmosphere. The developers mention printmaking and watercolor as their artistic inspiration, and the richly colored paper-like worlds and characters are brought to life with a delightful frame-by-frame animation style. The vivid environments are invitingly crafted and detailed, and the subtly animated illustrations that make up the cutscenes between each area look like they were pulled from the pages of a children’s book. Adding greatly to the enchanting aesthetic is the dreamlike, ethereal soundtrack composed (and sung) by Claudie Mackula. When I first booted up the game, I lingered on the main title screen for a few minutes, entranced by the wistful, wordless vocalizations of the title theme, reminiscent of Celtic music. These beautiful scores can occasionally be a bit distracting when they’re continually on repeat during longer stretches of difficult puzzles, but they’re otherwise an artistic high point that had me looking for the soundtrack after the game was over.

Final Verdict

Even in many of the best puzzle-adventures, if there isn’t a lot of story or nonlinear exploration to supplement the gameplay, there often comes a point where I start to become weary of solving one puzzle after another. Somehow, though, while Paper Trail‘s structure is highly guided and the tale being told lacks the depth of other more narrative-focused adventures, the playfulness of the folding mechanic kept me happily exploring and experimenting throughout each tightly designed level. And since it’s all such a pleasant experience, with many vibrant locales to wander through, characters to meet, and a captivating soundtrack to listen to, I remained thoroughly engaged to the last page.

Brian played Paper Trail on PC using a review code provided by the game's publisher.

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