I recently played Little Nightmares 1 and 2 for the first time, and they ignited a love for the puzzle-platformer genre I didn’t know I had. The art design, world-building, and varied challenges blew me away. Little Nightmares and Bramble (this deserves an article of its own…) totally opened my eyes to how amazing puzzle-platformers can be.
Both games deliver nail-biting stories of innocence navigating dangerous, dark worlds. They’re masters of environmental storytelling and satisfying puzzles, and they left me craving more. Enter Ayasa: Shadow of Silence. The trailer release took me by surprise, and it checked all the right boxes: a dark, twisted world ravaged by environmental disaster, grotesque creatures, and a young protagonist fighting to survive. With the full release on the way Q2 2025, I jumped at the chance to try the demo.
A Promising Premise, a Rocky Start
The demo opens with a short cut-scene. While intriguing, it didn’t reveal enough about the background of the world, the story, or the character we’re about to be introduced to. It had a pixelated, soft-focus look that reminded me of old FMV games, like The 7th Guest. This was a bit concerning considering the release is pretty imminent, but I still chalked it up to being a demo and kept an open mind going in.
The cut-scene ended, and I took control of the main character. She was just waking up in a dark forest. Her identity and backstory are kept a mystery, but that’s fine. Little Nightmares introduced its characters in a similarly cryptic way, letting you learn through gameplay. I was hopeful Ayasa would do the same and let the story unfold naturally as you played.
The game uses a third-person, side-scrolling perspective, but with the ability to explore on the Z-axis. Just as I was getting my bearings, a massive shadow appeared and chased me straight off a cliff. This was less than a minute into the game and was a bit jarring. On the second attempt, I realized I needed to cross a narrow plank, but aligning myself to it was frustratingly difficult. I found myself running off the edge or missing it entirely. Navigating the Z-axis felt clunky, making even simple tasks a chore. I was fighting with the controls instead of enjoying the challenge. I am an optimist by nature, but I accepted this was a bad start.
Finally escaping the random shadow monster and making it across the dreaded plank, the pacing came to a halt. The game started off with a (somewhat unpleasant) bang, thanks to that shadow in the opening scene, but then suddenly slowed to a crawl. I am a huge proponent for a standard narrative arc, but Ayasa throws that formula out the window like they are David Lynch. For a while, I wandered through the forest, wishing for more action or narrative breadcrumbs to orient me. It felt like the game was struggling to introduce its world and protagonist effectively. By the end of the demo, I couldn’t shake the feeling that the developers should have spent more time refining this first impression. A Q2 release feels too soon.
The demo’s gameplay focuses primarily on platforming and stealth. I started out playing with a controller, but the input lag was intense and made even basic jumps a test of patience. The delay was at least half a second, possibly a full second. This meant I was running off platforms before I could jump 90% of the time. Aligning jumps on the Z-axis was equally frustrating as I often missed platforms that I thought I was lined up with. Switching to mouse and keyboard improved responsiveness, but the controls still felt sluggish, which is far from ideal for a game relying so heavily on platforming.
A World that Needs Depth
The demo introduced a number of challenges to overcome, but the situations felt a bit disjointed without understanding how they fit into a wider narrative. For example, in Little Nightmares, the challenges are tied to the monsters you encounter, each building upon the previous. Here, every challenge felt like a completely different scene, and I couldn’t see how they all connected to the world or the previous. Without meaningful puzzles or clear context, my gameplay lacked purpose.
Despite these issues, the world itself is interesting enough that it left me curious to learn more. The environments are varied and visually striking. Your journey begins in a dark forest, which advances to the ruins of an ancient civilization, then into a city ravaged by faceless monsters. The demo left me wanting to understand more about the story. I can see that the team has lovingly crafted a haunting world with detailed backstory, but the demo did not let me in on that story or give me enough to feel like I knew what the full game was about. It could be the demo isn’t representative of the full game, but for a first impression, I can’t recommend Ayasa, especially with Little Nightmares 3 coming out this year.
Ayasa: Shadow of Silence has potential, but the demo leaves a lot to be desired. The inconsistent pacing, the lack of variation in gameplay, and the control issues make it so I can’t recommend Ayasa from the demo alone. Hopefully, these problems will get fixed by the time the full game is released. The Steam page promises the protagonist will have special powers, which is intriguing and could add some much-needed variety to the gameplay.
I would love to revisit the world of Ayasa once the full game is released. I have lots of respect for indie games because I understand the insane amount of work and passion that goes into them. I am rooting for the team; they have a great foundation for something special!