In Tchia (Awaceb, Kepler Interactive Limited, 2023), players become the titular character, a young girl of twelve, to explore her home islands of New Caledonia in the South Pacific. Tchia is incredible in every regard and I highly, highly recommend it. Tchia is best experienced first-hand to discover the magic of its movement and mysteries, and it's available on PS4 and PS5, Steam, Epic Games Store, and streaming over GeForce Now if you own the Epic Games Store version. If you’re interested, play the game first and then come back to read this little article.
Tchia can jump, swim, slide, paraglide, and climb trees. If Tchia climbs to the top of a tree, she can cling to the crown, sway the tree back and forth, and catapult herself into the air. It’s the best thing ever. Once she’s in the air, Tchia is free to open her glider, or dive into the sea, or grab onto other trees that she’s flung into. Then she can catapult herself again.
At one point in the game, an NPC gives players a quest to retrieve a specific species of crab from a mangrove forest called Kwéö. Mangrove forests are salty swamps, and when I first saw it, I thought to myself, “Oh man, I’m going to have to walk through this flat swamp; not too exciting.” But then I realized that I could just climb a mangrove tree and launch myself deeper into the forest. What I had feared was a chore was suddenly a super enjoyable little game because the swinging and gliding physics are so well tuned. If I wanted to, I could try to launch myself all the way across the forest, tree to tree, without ever touching the ground, like a monkey playing hot lava.
Shamefully, I realized that I needn’t fear the forest floor anyway because it’s gorgeous and fascinating and we’re privileged to stroll through it. But by matching an inspired mechanic with deceptively boring level design, Awaceb transformed a flat, (seemingly) repetitive area into a brilliant joyful playground.
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