Carried Away

Exploration games are not everyone’s cup of tea, mainly because there’s no action and not much of a story either, but they can be the perfect cure for a stressed mind. However, that’s not to say you cannot add a bit of interactivity to the equation as well, or even a lot of it. Hence, a bit of platforming never hurt anybody, especially if it’s done properly.

Carried Away is a short but great jam game in which you get to explore a fascinating world and do a bit of jumping as well. Not only that, but there are a few other gameplay concepts to worry about as well, such as ropes that can be used to pull objects together. There’s no ultimate goal and no story, on the other hand, so you are still free to do as you please.

As mention before, the goal is to travel between beautiful suspended islands, which are basically just huge boulders floating in the sky, with a few trees and grass on them. While it is possible to jump between them most of the time, some of these islands are too far apart, or they drift away in time. In order to avoid that, you can use grappling hooks and pull them closer together.

Once you throw the rope and it lands on another island, the two land masses come together, allowing you to jump and move on. On the other hand, not every island has a rope to allow you to do this, so you can still find yourself a bit stuck. In those cases, you can use the sprint or the double jump method to cover more distance without using ropes.

As far as the graphics are concerned, you shouldn’t expect an awful lot, but the environment is pretty well-designed and quite mesmerizing. Unfortunately, it also seems a bit claustrophobic, even if it’s theoretically an open sky with no limits. The islands are too tiny, on the other hand, so you always feel a bit isolated.

In the end, Carried Away is definitely like most other platformers out there, so it won’t stress you out. However, it’s not a true exploration game either, since there’s nowhere interesting to visit, and the game world is too small anyway.