Avava

Avava won the first PlayJam and really shows how far the Playdate has come since this first batch of jam games, just a few short months after the initial batch of consoles shipped to customers. Not quite a full game, it’s more of a proof-of-concept that Pulp doesn’t need to be used exclusively for RPGs. And now we have works of art like Resonant Tale, made with the same free, in-browser engine.

Avava is a rune-matching game. Well, a rune un-matching game. You are presented with a collection of chevrons pointing different directions, and your job is to – as quickly as possible – push the direction on the D-pad that isn’t shown on the screen. So, you’ll see a bunch of ups, downs, and lefts, so you have to push right on the D-pad. There’s a timer continually counting down, and you get bonus points for every five correct answers in a row.

There are some issues, like sometimes there will be two different missing directions on the screen and the one you’re supposed to push is the other one, despite the two correct possible answers. And I got a score in the hundreds but it doesn’t seem like there’s an ending? It never seems to speed up or get more difficult, either. Maybe that’s the point: there is no pleasing the gods. You just keep slogging along, doing your best, and trying to get a high score before you die. It’s a condensed experience that could be more. Again, just like life.

(Free on Itch.io.)