Unravel

Unravel is a physics-based platformer from Swedish studio Coldwood Interactive in which you control a tiny figure knitted out of red yarn named Yarny. Its body is itself a game mechanic, since the thread it's made of unravels as it walks, and once it runs out you can't go any further. You must therefore manage its length carefully, hunt for scattered extra skeins, and go back for thread you've left behind. The thread also serves as a rope, as a bridge between two hooks, and as a pulley with which you lift objects or lower yourself into depths.

The puzzles build on this single idea and develop it patiently throughout the whole game. You tie yourself to a nail, swing across a chasm, tie a knot, and create a trampoline. Elsewhere you need to drag an apple onto a scale, get past a flock of dangerous birds, or squeeze past a machine in a factory. Progression is linear, difficulty is gentle, and the game never punishes harshly, with checkpoints in abundance. The roughly six-to-eight-hour journey works as a parallel narrative about a family history, pieced together from photographs in an empty house and from vignettes playing out in the background of individual levels.

Visually it's one of the most beautiful titles of its kind on PlayStation 4. The settings draw on Nordic nature, meaning peat bogs, rocky coastlines, gardens, and snow-covered forests, and are shot with unusually soft light and a great depth of field, so the backgrounds resemble photographs. The music rests on accordion, violin, and piano, sustaining a melancholic, nostalgic mood. Critics praised above all the thread concept and the atmosphere, with reservations aimed at the way the puzzles start repeating toward the end. Today the game stands as an example of how a large-format publisher backed a small, personal project, and Yarny became an easily recognizable icon of the independent scene of its era. On PlayStation 4, Unravel ranks among titles that can be recommended even to players who otherwise avoid platformers, since the emphasis here lies not on reflexes but on finding solutions and on a calm pace.