Who knew folding a piece of paper could be so satisfying. Paper Trail’s folding mechanic demonstrates the versatility of paper folding to find new paths in remarkable origami fashion. Like origami, many of these puzzles can be quite challenging but not to an unreasonable degree. It’s unfortunate that this game’s story left me with a bland taste. Though the exciting folding mechanic along with other helpful amenities showed me that Paper Trail is more than just a two-sided piece of paper.
Story
This story tells Paige’s journey running away from home to pursue her dreams of getting an education. After her brother Oscar’s disappearance, Paige’s parents become restrictive about letting her leave the house. So when she receives her university acceptance letter they claim it’s too dangerous for her to leave the house. Taking measures into her own hands, she runs away from home in the middle of the night to begin her trek to the city. Across her journey she’s flooded with memories as to how and why her brother mysteriously disappeared. As intrigued as I was, this plot point does not pay off at the end. However, the story is told in a charming way. They’re told through Paige’s journaling which are progressed by the game’s folding gameplay. I liked this because it kept me engaged. Unfortunately, as wholesome as the journaling is, it’s not the reason why I would recommend playing this game.
Fold it right there!
Paper trail’s unique paper folding mechanic continually impressed and surprised me during the games’ short playthrough. The screen, shaped like an origami paper (a square), can be folded over to both cover obstacles and reveal hidden paths that remain on the opposite side of the paper. The paper can be folded side-to-side, top-to-bottom and corner-to-corner, all vice-versa of course. However, there are two limitations to this mechanic. First, paper cannot be folded over Paige herself. So figuring out where to move Paige to be able to fold the paper to move forward is the main challenge. The second limitation is that the paper cannot be folded more than once over itself. For example, if I were to fold the paper top to bottom, I wouldn’t be able to fold the paper side to side at all. I imagine this is to prevent the game from becoming too overwhelming, or prevent the player from trapping themselves.
After being introduced to the mechanics, I thought they were interesting, but I can’t deny that I underestimated their puzzling potential. After breezing through the first area of the game, I was quickly humbled when the game introduced more layered mechanics. There are areas that have multiple squares of paper involved. Also, the paper’s shape will constantly change from a square, to a cross, to a ‘L.’ Each new area introduces another layer to the mechanic of folding so by the end of the game you will be folding through numerous layers to get to the next goal. It gets challenging, but not impossibly challenging. It’s the type of stumping that takes trial and error since there are only so many ways to fold a paper. Still, Paper Trail excels at being a puzzler taking the folding mechanic to heights I never thought possible.
Honorable Mentions
Additional features worth mentioning are collectibles, replayable journal moments and a puzzle solver. Each area has multiple collectible origami pieces which all require more challenge to obtain than the required puzzles. There’s not a reward for obtaining these collectibles, nor are the quirky quips they tell worth the effort. I just like the additional challenge and brownie points.
Replayable journal moments make it easy to replay the charming journal moments. Great for those who might miss some details from the story. Lastly, if a section is too hard to solve a press of the button will show the order in which to fold the paper. It doesn’t show the paths, just an outline of the folded paper so finding the path is still up to the player. These features may or may not be the most enticing features but I believe they are great assets to this game.
The Verdict
Paper Trail is an exceptionally innovative puzzler that is challenging and offers solid features even if the story falls paper flat. I started off prejudging the game’s difficulty, but by the end of the few hours of the campaign I was astonished by the multi-layered puzzles that were expertly crafted with challenge.
Newfangled Games took Paper Trail’s folding mechanic and ran with it and more; incorporating solid features, such as challenging collectibles, replayable story moments, and a cheat sheet for complicated puzzles that may stump the player. These features proved to be beneficial to me, but they won’t be essential to every player’s experience. As superb as the folding mechanic is, the plot leaves nothing memorable to unfold. Regardless, I had fun and recommend those looking for a puzzler to get lost in all of Paper Trails’ challenging and innovative puzzles.
The Review
Great
