PlayStation VR owners looking for good bundle deals on physical videogames will be treated to a double-bill in March from Charm Games. The studio has collaborated with Perp Games to bring its two surreal puzzle titles FORM and Twilight Path together in one package.
The first virtual reality (VR) title from the developer, FORM was one of the more inventive puzzle games released back in 2017 for PC VR headsets. The storyline saw players guide Dr. Devin Eli on a surreal journey to unlock the secrets behind a recently discovered ancient artifact, The Obelisk. VRFocus enjoyed every minute in its original review.
2018’s Twilight Path wasn’t quite as surreal, catering for a wider audience with a more character-led experience. Trapped in a mystical spirit world between the afterlife and the real world, you encounter Barque, a talking ship; Singe, a fire spirit who manages to keep Barque’s engines running, and magical faerie navigator Nix. Take a look at VRFocus’ review for more details on this puzzle adventure.
“Charm Games have an incredibly creative and unique take on VR game’s design,” said Rob Edwards, Managing Director at Perp Games in a statement. “It is an honour to bring these two beautiful games together into one VR bundle for people to enjoy. FORM and Twilight Path are a perfect collection for anyone’s PSVR Library”
“FORM and Twilight Path drop you in to a pair of our beautiful, enchanting worlds.” said Alan Jernigan, Studio Director at Charm Games. “We’re thrilled to work with Perp Games to bring this bundle to PlayStation VR users.”
Both FORM and Twilight Path were digitally released for PlayStation VR in 2020. The double pack will be available to European gamers from 5th March 2021. Perp Games hasn’t said if other territories will follow. For further updates on the latest physical releases for PlayStation VR, keep reading VRFocus.
Twilight Path had a lot of potential. When I first covered the game in a hands-on preview last month, I noted Charm Games’ past success with Form and how it seemed that the core principles that made that VR puzzle adventure so memorable would be carried over into this spiritual follow-up, but that doesn’t seem to be the case. Twilight Path feels like a more ambitious project, but in the end it’s shallow and uninspired.
In Twilight Path you journey across a spirit realm solving puzzles and interacting with the magical world in an attempt to rescue and help spirits travel across the aptly named Twilight Path. Maybe this tells you a bit about my childhood growing up, but it reminded me a lot of Snake Way from Dragon Ball Z. The Path is falling apart here and it’s up to you to restore it and save the Spirit Realm.
While the narrative attempts to be more pointed and clear than it was in Form, it ends up falling a bit flat. The suggestive and otherworldly feeling that Form exuded was one of its defining characteristics, but Twilight Path seems too concerned with explaining things, only it never fully coalesces into a strong story.
All that aside though, make no mistake about it: Twilight Path is a gorgeous game. If the sheer visual spectacle of VR is all that you really look for in a game, then you won’t be disappointed here. The sense of scale is really excellent and I often found myself just standing still in place craning my neck to look around. But that window dressing doesn’t hide an otherwise uneventful journey through an esoteric world.
There are no locomotion mechanics in Twilight Path at all. You’ll stand in your actual play space, move around to reach out and grab things, and then automatically be transported to other areas and puzzles. There is but one section where you ride a device across a bridge. Normally this isn’t a big deal, but sometimes I ran into an issue where my play area wasn’t established in the correct spot physically, causing it to spawn inside of my real life desk without a way to move it.
Puzzles are similar to Form, but as stated, they feel less awe-inspiring. You’ll reach out and tweak objects or even use your spiritual powers to influence far-off creatures and leverage a nifty portal power that lets you peer through into another dimension. It works a bit like the Lens of Truth from The Legend of Zelda games (shown above.)
Form was so excellent because its puzzles were interesting and satisfying enough to stand on their own. In Twilight Path on the other hand, it feels more like they added spirit-babble story to try and pad the game with exposition since the actual gameplay wasn’t interesting enough on its own. I frankly just didn’t care about any of the characters. I can’t know for sure, but it feels overall rushed.
One of the hallmarks of a good puzzle game is when it slowly introduces mechanics that build on themselves and test you more and more as the game goes on. Even though it was a bit on the easy side, Torn does a decent job of this and The Gallery (both Episode 1 and Episode 2) is particularly excellent. Twilight Path was more like a hodge podge of unrelated tasks that didn’t seem to build towards a singular idea. Clocking in at just a little over an hour total, it fizzles out before it ever gets very interesting.
Final Score:4/10 – Disappointing
Twilight Path’s gorgeous visuals and massive world aren’t enough to hide the lackluster puzzle solving and brief journey through the spirit world. Since the adventure is over far too soon at barely more than an hour of gameplay, there really isn’t enough here to entice even the most hardcore puzzle gaming fans. Form was an excellent debut VR puzzle adventure for Charm Games, but Twilight Path feels like a step back. Unfortunately, the inhabitants of Twilight Path’s spirit world aren’t the only things about this game that are lifeless.
Of late there’s been some decent puzzle-driven adventures arrive for virtual reality (VR) headsets, with the likes of Torn and Blind both offering their own unique mechanics and interwoven narratives. Fans of this genre may well remember FORM by Charm Games – one of VRFocus’Best HTC Vive Games of 2017 – a surreal, sci-fi experience that marked the studio’s VR debut. Looking to emulate and expand upon that success, Charm Games has come up with Twilight Path, which does feel grander in vision yet lacks its forebears wow factor.
Once again Twilight Path is a somewhat bizarre and surreal, adventure. But rather than sci-fi, this time the team has gone down the road of fantasy, with spirits, dragons and magic to content with. You play an unnamed human who just so happens to wander into an oriental style bric-a-brac shop – a la Gremlins. Upon solving an initial puzzle you’re then whisked away to a spirit realm for reasons unknown, with your purpose now to find a way home.
Along this journey you actually have some company of sorts. A living anthropomorphic ferry called Barque, Singe his fiery companion and power source, plus Nix, a faerie navigator. While Barque provides you with a ride, and Singe with the odd bit of humorous dialogue, their actual use in Twilight Path is somewhat muted and barely explored, more like an addition to give the title some warmth. They don’t provide help on puzzles, merely filling in parts of the story, while Nix does offer a touch of help highlighting useful items to grab, never speaking a word.
On the subject of puzzles Twilight Path has an assortment of what can be best described as medium puzzles. What’s nice about them is the hands-on nature of most of them. Physically moving sliders and switches whilst using a magical gem on your wrist to see hidden artefacts. It provides a solid, robust sense of interaction to the whole experience. On the other hand their difficulty isn’t high, so there’s very little likelihood of getting stuck at any point.
And the similarities with FORM are easy to spot, from the inclusion of musical puzzles to arranging magical stones into correct patterns, the ideas have been repurposed with a new skin. That’s not necessarily a bad thing, but what should’ve been a puzzle experience that went even bigger and better than before just hasn’t. And much like most of the beautiful pastel/watercolour environments the core gameplay seems watered down and too simplified.
As mentioned this is a magical spirit realm, with fantastical inhabitants and otherworldly powers. Yet there are only two to hand. The wrist mounted gem to see glowing connection paths, and what can be described as an advanced grab function. Holding both triggers brings up a ying and yang motif. Once they align letting go brings up two cursors which can highlight far off objects like the flags which help teleport you around each area. Unfortunately these cursors aren’t directly connected to your hands like laser pointers, they do tend to waft around if you’re not careful, which can make aligning them with small distant objects a might frustrating.
Twilight Path was one videogame VRFocus was looking forward to but it didn’t quite deliver. There’s nothing inherently wrong with the experience, with a reasonable story intermingled with some straightforward fun puzzles. It just had no spark to its delivery, almost feeling like a step back from FORM. And Twilight Path’s fixed linear delivery doesn’t hold up as well against the far more free roaming nature of its rivals.
From the makers of FORM (2017), a well regarded indie VR puzzle game, comes Twilight Path. With an entirely new setting, Twilight Path attempts something more ambitious than its predecessor, but winds up feeling like a rushed followup.
Developer:Charm Games Available On: SteamVR (Vive, Rift), Oculus Store (Rift) Reviewed On: SteamVR (Vive Pro) Release Date: October 2nd, 2018
Gameplay
Opening with a short prologue about a spirit world that’s recently come under siege by a cursed dragon demon, Twilight Path begins ever so briefly in the human world before transporting you to the spirit world with little explanation, beginning a linear string of puzzles which can be fun but often feel arbitrary as you teleport from one puzzle node to the next.
Whereas Charm Games’ previous title, FORM, had a more abstract presentation which relied and usually succeeded with dazzling visuals, Twilight Path sets up a more structured world and introduces the player to a few characters in an effort to infuse the game’s puzzle gameplay with interesting context.
Screenshot by Road to VR
Unfortunately it fails on that front as the characters are ill developed and almost entirely without player interaction, serving more as a convenient in-game location for some voice acting work to emanate. By the end, the game tries to bring a little action into the mix and suss some emotion out of the player after a climactic scene, but fails to achieve a sense of danger or urgency, while lacking the requisite character development to make the player care about the outcome.
Failing in its overambitious attempt at world building, Twilight Path is left then with just its puzzles. While you’ll find a few new ideas, there’s plenty borrowed from FORM. While that’s not necessarily a bad thing, Twilight Path didn’t feel like it brought many innovative or memorable puzzle ideas to the table, and rarely offered me any “eureka” moments that are often accompany puzzle games that make you think outside the box.
Despite being usually fun to interact with thanks to (usually) good affordance design, FX, and SFX, puzzles largely felt like one-off contraptions. Twilight Path doesn’t really teach the player underlying concepts to later be tested in a challenging setting—the essence of most any game.
Screenshot by Road to VR
Even priced at a low $15, with a little over an hour of play timeTwilight Path feels like it tries to do too much with its world in the time allotted, while not focusing enough on the player’s gameplay journey.
Charm Games says that Twilight Path serves as an introduction to its world and they plan to add more chapters to this tale in the future.
Immersion
Screenshot by Road to VR
In Twilight Path you’re described as a human who has come to the spirit realm, apparently a fairly uncommon happenstance. You’ve acquired several magical abilities (for some reason), allowing you to interact with objects at a distance, transform broken things into not broken things, and teleport from one predefined location to the next.
The purely linear nature of the game, coupled with node-based teleportation—which sometimes moves you hundreds of feet or more from where you just were in a matter of seconds—makes it hard to stay grounded in the game world as you’re often left wondering exactly where you are in relation to the rest of the environment.
While the game gives you abilities which on paper should feel empowering, they often feel more like a means of activating scripted sequences. For instance, early in the game there’s some giant boulders blocking a pathway. While you might want to use your force power to pick them up and move them off of the track, instead you can only use your force power to just click and hold on certain action nodes on the boulders which causes them to blow up after a few seconds (for some reason).
Other ‘puzzle’ elements involve using your force power to click and hold on an obvious node for a few seconds as a large broken object reforms into its unbroken shape. Again, it would have been more empowering if I got to physically manipulate the large pieces to put the object back together myself, instead of simple activating a scripted animation with a trigger hold.
Twilight Path is a decent looking game, but lacks some consistency in its environmental design. The first half of the game takes place in the large outdoor spirit realm setting which is mostly passable, but lacks character. In the latter half of the game you’ll find an immense spirit creature that’s surprisingly detailed and quite well animated for its size. From then on out you enter interior spaces which are significantly more detailed and occasionally awe inducing. Sadly, you’ll only spend a few minutes in some of the game’s most richly detailed areas.
Comfort
As the game is purely teleportation based, and doesn’t require you to move more than a step from your central position, it’s perfectly comfortable, save for a few moments where you’re riding on a slowly moving vehicle.
To use your force power at a distance, the game relies on cursors which are projected out into the world. Played with the Vive, the cursors moved with my hands in a somewhat unintuitive manner, making control a little less precise than it seems it should be. I think this may have been an effort to avoid simple laser pointing input (which is smart), but the result could have felt better.
Charm Games, the studio known for the critically-acclaimed VR puzzle game FORM (2017), today announced their upcoming puzzle-adventure Twilight Path is slated to release arrive soon on HTC Vive and Oculus Rift.
Arriving October 2nd on Steam (Vive, Rift) and the Oculus Store (Rift), Twilight Path is a single-player adventure that throws you into a mystical purgatory where you have to escape by solving a variety of VR puzzles while restoring massive stone structures, opening sealed passageways, and rescuing magical creatures from danger along the way.
Twilight Path, at least from our hands-on with an early alpha, appears to have departed entirely from FORM’s inherently dark sci-fi aesthetic, although it has plenty puzzle-oriented gameplay and attention to detail that fans of FORM should recognize despite the new, Studio Ghibli-inspired environment, including anthropomorphic buddies to keep you company along the way.
Here’s a quick blurb of what Road to VR’s Ben Lang experienced while playing the first two chapters of the early alpha:
“My preview lasted about 25 minutes and the interactions throughout were clearly indicated and satisfying to execute. Several moments showed the studio’s FX skill, like when holding the gem from the bracelet and seeing glowing runes floating in the air around it, or when activating the fortune teller machine and seeing a pane of cracked glass appear creating convincing distortions of the image behind it.”
There’s still no word on what sort of gameplay length to expect from Twilight Path, although it’s being priced at $15—the same as FORM, an hour-long experience. The studio’s upcoming game however promises more narrative elements which hopefully will have us puzzling and exploring for a bit longer in what promises to be a richly-detailed world.
However you slice it, if Twilight Path can offer up the same quality of experience seen in FORM, it appears we’re in for a highly-polished game that’ll easily appeal to newcomers and experienced VR users alike.
Entwicklerstudio Charm Games stellt sein neues VR-Rätselabenteuer Twilight Path vor, das noch im Sommer 2018 erscheinen soll und euch in eine fantastische Welt voller Herausforderungen führt. Der VR-Titel ist der inoffizielle Nachfolger von FORM(Juni 2017), welches für Oculus Rift, HTC Vive und Windows-VR-Brille erschienen ist.
Twilight Path – Atmosphärisches VR-Rätselabenteuer von Charm Games
Das VR-Abenteuer Twilight Path führt euch ähnlich wie FORM in eine wunderschön gestaltete Umgebung, um euer Wissen sowie eure Geduld in zahlreichen Rätseln auf die Probe zu stellen. Im Gegensatz zum Vorgänger durchlauft ihr dieses Mal jedoch kein Sci-Fi-Setting, sondern durchwandert eine Fantasy-Umgebung.
Die Spieler/innen werden in den namens gebenden Twilight Path befördert, der als mystische Zwischenebene die reale Welt mit dem Totenreich verbindet. Aufgrund eines geheimnisvollen Fluchs herrscht Chaos im surrealen Gebiet. Um einen Weg nach Hause zu finden, müsst ihr den Twilight Realm restaurieren und vom fiesen Fluch befreien. Entsprechend durchwandert ihr die surreale Umgebung und stellt euch zahlreichen Aufgaben und Rätseln, bis ihr auf die Erde zurückkehren könnt.
Die Devs versprechen eine lebhafte Spielwelt mit zahlreichen Charakteren, die euch auf eurer Reise begegnen und gelegentlich begleiten. Die Steuerung funktioniert per Teleportation, indem ihr von einem festen Punkt zum nächsten springt, wo neue Rätsel auf euch warten.
Den Vorgänger FORM haben wir bereits für euch angespielt. Was euch darin erwartet, könnt ihr in unserem Testvideo anschauen:
Ein offizieller Veröffentlichungstermin wurde bisher leider noch nicht bekannt gegeben. Ebenso wurden die unterstützenden VR-Brillen bisher leider noch nicht veröffentlicht. Laut Webseite von Charm Games soll der Release des VR-Titels noch im Sommer 2018 bevorstehen.
Update: Twilight Path will launch on October 2nd on Steam and Oculus Home for $14.99.
Original:Twilight Path from Charm Games has a strong sense of identity from its opening moments. The very second that it begins you immediately feel like you’re inside of a fully-realized virtual world, even if all you’re really doing is teleporting around while solving puzzles.
This is the follow-up to 2017’s Form, an exquisite, but extremely short, sci-fi themed puzzle game, and the feeling that these were made by the same people and perhaps even somehow exist in the same universe is palpable. Charm clearly has a strong identity and could become a go-to developer of VR puzzle games just like Owlchemy is a go-to developer of silly interaction games.
Similar to Form, Twilight Path has beautiful environments that you feel compelled to gawk at, but you won’t be running around with any artificial locomotion at all. This is just a stand in place and teleport a bit type of game, which is perfectly fine for this type of experience.
The brief demo I tried featured two primary “powers” that I used to solve puzzles: a tiny little magical orb and a telekinesis grabbing power. When I held the orb up and gazed through it, similar to the Lens of Truth in Ocarina of Time, it revealed secrets in the world. I get the feeling that this orb and the “Twilight” theme are going to play major parts in this puzzle adventure.
Obviously the biggest difference between Twilight Path and Form is just the actual setting. Whereas Form was a staunchly sci-fi game full of esoteric monuments, bright cascading lights, and floating platforms, Twilight Path feels much more grounded, even if still highly fantastical. It’s equally as gorgeous visually, just in a different style. Stylistically it actually gave me some vibes similar to The Gallery from Cloudhead, or obviously Myst.
When playing a non-VR puzzle game, I have a bad habit of getting frustrated very easily after trying a few solutions at random when I get stuck, but that doesn’t seem to happen as much in VR. Games like Twilight Path instead invite me to tinker until I found the solution. Similar to Form it didn’t feel overly difficult, but hopefully that’s just because this was only a small section of the game.
The devs clearly have a handle on how to make engaging puzzles in VR, but hopefully they can flex their narrative muscles a bit more this time around. The ancient, mystical, and mysterious world of Twilight Path is seeping with character and it’d be a shame to see that go to waste for just a thematically similar collection of puzzles. Since the demo was only a short 30-minute slice, maybe the full game dives into the world and story a bit more.
We don’t have a firm release date for Twilight Path at this time, but the website still says Summer 2018 and we expect to see it land on Rift, Vive, and Windows VR. Let us know what you think down in the comments below!
Launched in 2017, FORM is a narrative puzzle game from Charm Games that’s become something of a hidden gem in the VR gaming space—lesser known, but well liked, with a strong critical reception and positive reviews from players on both Oculus and Steam. Our preview of the studio’s upcoming follow up, Twilight Path, shows that players can expect to see more of what they loved, this time with a new setting and a mystical flair.
After I played through the first two chapters of what was described as an “early alpha demo,” it’s clear that Twilight Path aims for much of the same puzzle-focused gameplay as its predecessor. Though this isn’t a direct sequel and things are going to look and feel different; whereas Form had a sci-fi aesthetic and was set inside the mind of a scientist, Twilight Path brings more ancient and mystical tones, with at least a little bit of Studio Ghibli inspiration.
In Twilight Path I found myself moving along a node-based level structure. While teleportation isn’t always the most immersive of locomotion schemes in VR, in this case it’s used well, as each stop along your path is typically home to a puzzle or narrative sequence which means you are spending time at each point interacting with the level rather than mindlessly moving about from moment to moment.
Though mystical, Twilight Path has a decidedly more Earthly tone to its setting (compared to the abstract geometric sensibilities of Form). This approach means more recognizable environments and objects, which show off the studio’s attention to visual fidelity.
In the game’s opening sequence I found myself in a curio shop with a large wooden crate before me. After removing the boards I was greeted with a latched cabinet which I was able to unlock by twisting two handles and then swinging open the door to reveal a series of drawers. After figuring out how to open the final drawer, I discovered a bracelet which came floating before me, and upon putting my hand inside of it, it shrunk down to stay affixed to my wrist. A gemstone on the bracelet encouraged me to grab it with my other hand, and upon doing so I was able to summon a purple translucent orb.
Looking through the orb allowed me to see secret markings on the cabinet which led me to find a potion which gave me a ‘force grab’-like power that allowed me to interact with distant objects. It became clear to me that between the seeing orb and the force grab I had acquired two powers that would serve as useful tools for my adventure going forward. Over the course of the game I’d expect more to follow.
For now though, I found my way over to a fortune-teller machine in the corner of the shop. I opened a cabinet and found some markings by looking through the seeing orb, which helped me figure out how to activate the machine, at which point I stared into its crystal ball and was teleported to a mystical realm, the Twilight Path, where I’d go on to be introduced to the game’s first characters, and of course solve a few more puzzles before the conclusion of the preview.
My preview lasted about 25 minutes and the interactions throughout were clearly indicated and satisfying to execute. Several moments showed the studio’s FX skill, like when holding the gem from the bracelet and seeing glowing runes floating in the air around it, or when activating the fortune teller machine and seeing a pane of cracked glass appear creating convincing distortions of the image behind it.
These subtle but well executed details feel a little bit magical when you’re right up close to them in VR, and speak to an attention to detail that as present here as it was in Form.
While my preview left me encouraged that Charm Games will have no problem recreating the interactive puzzle-based fun of Form, I’m hoping to see Twilight Path take things to the next level in gameplay and narrative. My time in the game offered some glimpses of characters and lore, but didn’t delve much into a central conflict or what kind of challenges might face the player going forward. Puzzles are fun, but they can become something greater when woven into a story that you care about.
Image courtesy Charm Games
And when it comes to length, this kind of hand-authored game, focused largely on unique interactions and puzzles, can be especially difficult for an indie studio to flesh out into a substantial amount of gameplay. Form, for instance, only lasted about an hour. It seems that Twilight Path is aiming for a broader scope, but the studio hasn’t yet said how much gameplay they’re hoping to achieve.
So far the studio hasn’t confirmed a specific release date for Twilight Path, but previously said it was due out this Summer. After this promising preview, we’ll be looking forward to hearing more from Charm Games about where this mystical journey will take us.
Wann man als VR-Nerd an ein schönes und stimmungsvolles Spiel denkt, dann kommt einem schnell FORM von Charm Games in den Sinn. Der VR-Titel erschien letztes Jahr für die Oculus Rift und HTC Vive und stellt ein spannendes Puzzle-Game mit anfassbaren Rätseln dar. In unserem Test konnte FORM vier von fünf Freddys abstauben und auch auf Steam sprechen 375 Bewertungen mit einem „Sehr positiv“ als Durchschnitt eine eindeutige Sprache. Nun kündigen die Entwickler mit Twilight Path neues Spielefutter für Rätselfreunde an.
Twilight Path: Frische Aufgaben für Rätsel-Freunde
Mit Twilight Path werden die Entwickler wohl bei ihren Wurzeln bleiben und ein neues Spiel für Rätsel-Fans ins Rennen schicken, das in einem Fantasy-Setting angesiedelt ist und euch boshafte Götter und Geister auf den Hals hetzt. Zudem soll das Spiel auf maximalen Komfort ausgelegt sein: Weder Zeitdruck noch Tod belästigen den Spieler. Twilight Path könnte sich also sehr nah am Vorgänger halten und es wird spannend, ob die Entwickler genügend frische Ideen und Rätsel in das Spiel integrieren können, um den Zauber von FORM erneut entfachen zu können.
Derzeit ist nicht klar, wann das Spiel genau erscheint, doch die Entwickler peilen einen Release im Sommer 2018 an. Zunächst soll das Spiel nur für die HTC Vive und die Oculus Rift erscheinen, wobei ein Support von Windows Mixed Reality Headsets wohl kein größeres Problem darstellen sollte. Ob sich Charm Games auch zukünftig an die PSVR trauen wird, ist derzeit noch offen.
Charm Games, the developers behind the fantastic (albeit fairly short) otherworldly puzzle game FORM (2017), today unveiled their next upcoming VR title. Called Twilight Path, the puzzle game will take you on what Charm calls a fantasy adventure “to meet wandering spirits, enchanted sentries, and mischievous gods.”
Slated to arrive summer 2018, we don’t have a good idea yet what headsets will be supported. FORM, a game which we gave a solid [8.5/10], supports both Oculus Rift and HTC Vive – something the studio could repeat if they don’t go the exclusivity route, be it via PSVR or Oculus.
If the cinematic stylings, visual polish and clear intention behind FORM’s design is any indication, than you can color us excited for more information on Twilight Path.
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image courtesy Charm Games
image courtesy Charm Games
image courtesy Charm Games
image courtesy Charm Games
While there’s still not much out there yet about the game, we found this quick blurb in the description of the teaser trailer.
Use your wits to solve puzzles, restore ruined structures, open sealed passageways, and rescue a host of magical creatures from danger
Explore a gorgeous and vibrant world, only possible in virtual reality
