![]() ![]() One moment you’ll be slingshotting off a treetop to then Soul Jump mid-air into a soaring bird, fly across a city and jump back out to perform a 720 triple frontflip into the ocean, the next you’re playing ukulele alongside a tribe of magical, wooden people in a secret underground shrine. It gives the game a lovingly handcrafted quality and invites the player to be playful and expect the unexpected. Awaceb’s approach to gameplay systems in Tchia is “who cares about gameplay systems?” and instead the studio seems to have just created whatever gameplay mechanics it wanted to at any given moment. A prevailing design ethos of Tchia’s is “why not?” and I’m absolutely here for it. No dogs around? Go to the next village over, find one, stuff it in your backpack next to the four bunches of bananas, dodgy radioactive canister and multiple live birds and return to the dig site with it. Need to dig up a nearby treasure chest? Jump into a dog and get digging. ![]() Soul Jumping adds a ton to the experience of solving otherwise basic puzzles too, not least because the game has an admirable disregard for logic. Some will have their own abilities used to solve light puzzles, like a crab’s pincers to cut through ropes or a lantern’s explosive heat to set things ablaze, but more often than not you’ll Soul Jump into a nearby bird to quickly fly across the islands or get real tricky and start flinging yourself through the air as an errant coconut. Tchia can use her power to possess any animal in the game, as well as a huge number of inanimate objects, and take control of them. While you can walk, sail and use limited fast travel, by far the best way to traverse the game’s varied environments is to use Tchia’s power of Soul Jumping. Luckily, the act of getting around is one of the game’s greatest joys thanks to its unique mechanics. You’ll be guided throughout by a series of overarching quests, most of which task Tchia with going to specific places or collecting particular items, but you’ll more often than not find yourself simply exploring of your own accord, drawn to any number of points of interest that catch your eye. ![]() ![]() Tchia is a game that doesn’t simply use culture as set dressing, it’s embedded in everything from the stories it tells and the way it tells them, to how it plays and what it wants players to take away from it.Īs far as playing goes, what’s here is a freeform adventure in a sizeable open world made up of large and small islands with plenty of characters to meet, secrets to find and challenges to surmount. It’s also all been recorded in traditional languages by local talent, which is fantastic. Its narrative beats are constructed with the kind of care and production I’d expect from a CG-animated series on a major network. CLICK TO LEARN MORE.Īlthough there are some jarringly dark moments peppered throughout (fair warning if violence towards animals and infants could alarm you – there’s a bit of that here, though it’s all rather “cartoony” and there’s a Family Filter option), Tchia is also packed with charm with plenty of gorgeous and well-composed cutscenes with some genuinely great comedic timing at moments. Without giving anything away, while the game tells a fairly straightforward tale, there are actually some rather powerful moments told with a lot of nuance and from some refreshingly unique perspectives. After Meavora’s followers kidnap Tchia’s father and leave her stranded on her tiny island home, she decides to set out to the greater islands and formulate a plan to take him down and rescue his prisoners. It’s the kind of game where a handful of flaws is far from cause to look past it – it’s still an unforgettable and highly recommended experience.Ĭast as the game’s titular heroine, Tchia introduces players to a fictional archipelago based loosely on New Caledonia, and one ruled with an iron first by an evil god named Meavora and his army of magical fabric warriors. It’s also intensely cultural, coming from Awaceb in New Caledonia (this is only their second game!) and steeped in local history and talent. It’s relentlessly charming and packed with the kinds of ideas that the churning, AAA machine wouldn’t touch with a million-dollar budget. Tchia is a fantastic example of this, as both a game that often feels compromised by its ambitions but never once seems burdened with them. The gulf in production values between a blockbuster release and a passion project from a small studio might be obvious at times, but the same can be said of the creativity and ingenuity between them. One of the greatest appeals of a good indie video game, to me, is knowing I’m playing something created with passion. ![]()
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