Above

In the world of indie games that are built to strain your mind and severely test your determination, Above might be waiting to compete with the best. You could consider the above to be a bit of an overstatement but you have to play it first, and then we can argue.

In Above there are no typically straightforward hints for what you have to do. Since it’s designed to be an exploration puzzle game, you’ll have to figure out absolutely everything on your own. To make things better, or worse, or both at the same time, the world you find yourself is part fantasy and part alien.

Apart from identifying buttons, knobs and switches, the rest just seems mildly familiar. Here, wells play music; the island floats, strange writing is everywhere, and you quickly find out that you’re not even a humanoid. Everything in Above comes together to create one truly immersive ambiance and an honest test for those who excel in puzzle games. However, there is a risk factor here, that Above might be a bit too abstract.

It takes a few minutes to put one and two together but soon enough you’ll see that you need to sum up apples, pears, flying squids, alien hieroglyphs and a bunch of other stuff. Above doesn’t make any sense at first, and that’s why for some, it will feel frustrating.

However, like the developers suggest, take out a piece of paper and a pen, you’ll need them. Along with having mad puzzle solving skills, abstract thinking, visual memory and tons of patience, a sharp eye also goes a long way. You’d be surprised how much is in the details or what unusual thing is a button or a switch. And that, makes Above a very interesting puzzle game.

Above requires a lot of work and hopefully for a good reason. It seems like a deep and profound game with a silent narrative. Linear gameplay is taken out of the discussion because Above is built out of puzzle modules, meaning you can solve one then go to another, not all of them are dependent on each other.

To end, Above is a well thought out and built indie title, hopefully, you’ll find that the payoff at the end will be worth all the effort.