OIO is an indie puzzle platformer developed and sold by French studio Uncanny Games for the PC and Mac. OIO is the small wooden creature that you control through your adventure after waking up to find that all his friends have been petrified. By growing wooden beams with seeds he can make platforms to walk on and across to reach new areas or solve puzzles.
OIO wakes up from a petrified state after a beam of sunshine envelops him. He gets up and finds all his friends are petrified and itβs up to him to try and solve the mystery behind their ailment and turn them back to normal. Using two types of seeds which OIO can throw, he can grow wooden platforms out of green plant areas or out of the sides of another wooden platform. OIO can have a total of 3 beams altogether in any arrangement but if another seed ins thrown somewhere where it can grow the earliest wooden platform is destroyed along with any platforms that have been grown out of it. The other seed destroys any wooden platform it touches along with any beams growing out of it as well. This is more useful than it first seems as much of the gameplay after the first few levels is simplified by performing destruction of beams and new growths in a quick succession.
Physics plays quite a large part in not only the platforming but also the movement and bouncing of the seeds as well as a few other interesting puzzles. Seeds will bounce off of all non-growth patches and growth seeds bounce off of beams at maximum capacity. Seeds and other objects have weight which can be used to press buttons, or weigh down see-saw platforms. There is a surprising amount of physics implemented into some of the platforms as loosely constructed platforms will break or topple like dominoes under OIOβs weight. Both these rickety platforms and the fire which can chase you across levels do add quite a nice sense of urgency and danger giving you a real boost in adrenaline at times. Fire also burns your beams to a cinder leaving you trapped and waiting for death.
While you do have unlimited lives and checkpoints are rather close together dying does mean that you lose out on each levels immortality achievements for not dying. Dying is quite frequent due to some platforming being quite difficult but luckily heights donβt cause death unless you fall into a chasm. Light fragments are collected during levels and scoring 100 of these will give achievements here and there but otherwise they donβt seem to do much. Fresk is the other collectable, three appear in each level and once collected are saved to the storyboard in the main menu. Each piece of Fresk adds another piece of a picture to the story board which is in a cave painting style explaining the events leading up to the beginning of the game.
The graphics are very stylized to what looks very much like water colours, and is very much of a distinctively French cartoon art style. Itβs both colourful and dark at the same time due to the moody undertone to the games story and although the environments sometimes get a little repetitive many of the stages especially early on in the game are full of pretty sights and ranging from underground caverns to mechanical mines.
The audio is of a very relaxing sort, it has a lot of very light but deep tones which is supposed to convey the loneliness of OIO and at points it can sound a little industrial at times when the pacing of the game changes.
Presentation and Audio
Graphically OIO is very pretty; itβs highly stylized look is very foreign and different, giving the games mysterious vibe a bit more substance to those not used to the art styles. The audio really complements the tone the game and its environments want to give off and it also works well with OIOβs current situation in-game.
Gameplay
It is a pretty good platformer which works with some interesting physics puzzles but the mechanics arenβt really deep enough with the wooden beams and the physics arenβt used as effectively as they could be. Many puzzles have samey solutions and get repetitive because of it. Aside from that some of the set pieces are very good and the gameβs final level is very well executed and rounds the game off nicely.
Overall
The game looks great and has the tone set very well because of the music and the art style working together so well. It also has some very interesting ideas and works well with some of them but it doesnβt expand much on some ideas which lets it down during puzzles and some of the platforming.
Comments
OIO is an enjoyable game and the cutscenes are really nice to watch but you will find that the puzzles get a little repetitive and sometimes tedious. Itβs still an enjoyable platformer and has some really interesting ideas but it never really plays them out much more than it does in the first 3 or 4 levels. Anything new after that only happens 2-3 times throughout the whole game and I feel it misses an opportunity to really show off more with the seeds and growing beams.
Disclaimer:All scores given within our reviews are based on the artist’s personal opinion; this should in no way impede your decision to purchase the game
