Nelumbo helps a small, lost woodland creature through an ever-changing array of natural puzzles that stand in the way of their journey home.
Nelumbo is a platformer full of gentle puzzles and thoughtful environments that encourage some playful exploration. There is a sort of story that happens along with it, but none of the narrative moments are told through words or text. Instead, everything is converyed through pictures and reactions from the main character itself.
You play a little forest creature of the same name as the game. This critter is looking to make their way home. This sounds easy enough, but you aren’t quite sure where you are or where home even is. As it turns out, there was some sort of strange event that has caused you to end up quite far from your own home and now you must figure out what is going on in your world to better find your way back to your house without getting lost further.
The whole game is hand drawn and filled with lots of stunning moments and beautiful puzzles. It changes stage by stage as you work through wild environments that are filled with tricky interactions for you to figure out. If you can solve the uses of the various flora and fauna, you should be able to a way forward and hopefully make it that much closer to your home. From using bubbles to get higher to swimming in ponds to waiting for platforms to change, there is a lot to discover and make use of.
I got the chance to play a demo of Nelumbo at BIG Conf, where I found myself interested in the visual style. The world is just cute and pulls you in! The developers explained that their bigger picture is to try to create an atmospheric, sort of relaxing type of puzzle game that draws the player into it. The game is on the smaller side, but still actively being worked on, so we will have to wait to see where the story goes in the end.
Nelumbo is currently available (for free) on itch.io.
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