PAX East 2020: Evan’s Remains’ Intriguing Narrative Has Me Excited

Evan’s Remains may have rudimentary gameplay, but its narrative paints a very intriguing picture.

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Sometimes with games, looks are all you need to find appeal. When I received an invite to come see Evan’s Remains, I honestly didn’t even read what it was about. I took a single glance at its rich pixel art and was sold on the demo. It looked like a SNES game mixed with anime, so I was curious.

What I found was a more casual focused game that presents a very intriguing narrative mixed with some light puzzle solving. If you think the formula from Braid (simple ideas that progressively advanced until new ones are introduced), you’ll have a good idea of how this plays. It’s a puzzle platformer that isn’t trying to break the mold when it comes to gameplay. Narratively, though, Evan’s Remains is on point.

The demo at PAX East this past weekend was essentially the final game. In it, a woman named Dysis is sent to a mysterious island in search of a man named Evan. Even has been missing for several years and out of the blue, Dysis receives a letter that specifically calls her out to head to this remote location. Apparently uninhabited, Dysis meets someone not even 10 minutes into her trip there.

It’s an intriguing mystery that plays out in a fashion similar to Cave Story. You’ll solve a couple of puzzles, and then get treated to cutscenes separated from the main game. It builds an air of mystery that compels you to keep moving forward. You want to learn about what’s going on, how everyone’s fates are tied together, and what is coming next.

In the amount I played of Evan’s Remains, I saw the puzzles begin to slowly evolve. The general gist is that you’ll step on blocks that disappear once you jump from them. A single block will flip which panels are hidden or not and you’ll need to mess around with these platforms until a single line gets you over the wall blocking your path.

About 15 minutes in, the game then starts tinkering with the idea of a teleportation block. Denoted by a green symbol, this block you instantly teleport you to its companion block where you’ll be given a higher or lower perspective on the current situation. You’ll then have some puzzles where certain blocks are only reachable after teleporting or where you’ll have to make one block disappear, reset the formation, then teleport.

It’s actually far more complicated to write out than it is to see in practice. The game has some very intuitive controls that don’t go for complexity. You basically run and jump, nothing more. In fact, if that’s even too much for you, Evan’s Remains has some accessibility options to let you entirely skip puzzles. A certain subset of gamers may see that as dumbing things down, but the main drive for seeing this game to the end is its narrative.

I like a good puzzle-platformer, but Evan’s Remains is cut from the same cloth as a ton of other indie titles over the last decade or so. It’s solid, but a little unremarkable. Where it gets interesting is in that story. I didn’t play the game for too long (mostly because I would have just sat there and finished it), but the story is very interesting. The dialogue is well written, the characters seem haunted by things in their past, and the visuals create a calming atmosphere that I just want to soak in.

Maybe it’s weird to say that the platforming is the weakest part of a platformer, but Evan’s Remains is much more than just a simple game. That I’m curious to see where things go is a testament to how captivated I became by the plotting. I really do want to know where/what/who Evan is and how this journey will end.

Link Source : https://www.thegamer.com/pax-east-2020-evans-remains-preview/