Check out this charming new game included in your Netflix subscription
If you have a Netflix subscription, but have yet to try any of the games included with it, you’re missing out. The streaming service has quietly put together a strong library of titles over the past few years, from certified classics like Hades to strong original games like Laya’s Horizon. Next week, Netflix subscribers can get another charming indie with their subscription: Paper Trail.
Developed by Newfangled Games, Paper Trail is a top-down puzzle adventure about a girl leaving her small town behind to attend university. Her journey isn’t straightforward, though. To achieve her dream, she needs to navigate puzzling forests, proving that she has the brains to tackle the challenges awaiting her on the other side. There’s a unique twist, though: Her world is made up of paper. That gives Paper Trail a tactile gameplay hook that makes it a charming, if light, addition to Netflix’s library.
While there’s a story threaded throughoutPaper Trail and lots of characters to meet, narrative isn’t exactly the draw here. The small runaway tale here feels more like a good way to set its hero on a fairy tale journey through watercolor biomes filled with papercraft puzzles. It’s a soothing aesthetic that makes for a relaxing game you can play on your phone while curled up on the couch.
The real hook is Paper Trail’s hybrid puzzle-adventure gameplay, which calls back to other mobile-first titles like Where Cards Fall. Biomes are broken up into individual screens, each of which is a double-sided piece of paper. By holding two fingers down on the screen, I can see what’s on the other side of the paper level. To navigate it successfully, I use my touchscreen to grab a corner or side of the level and fold it over to try and create a new path. If I find myself standing at the end of a wide gap I can’t cross, for instance, I may find that I can actually fold the screen in half, revealing a platform on the other side that connects to the one I’m standing on.
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