There’s a moment when I’m swimming that I can’t get over.
I’m about to start the front crawl.
The matte blue of the pool’s floor, coming to me through a few feet of water.
This is a feeling thatNaiad, a new game about wild swimming, absolutely nails.
For the first few levels, it sets out a simple framework.
it’s possible for you to gather frogs behind you and land them on their lilly pads.
It’s beautiful stuff, with perhaps my favourite video game water sinceSuper Mario Sunshine.
But you properly feel its invisible forces.
There’s such a pleasure in textures here.
And the water itself?
At the end of each level the entire screen dissolves in particles like wet sand before scattering.
Naiad is a game to immerse yourself in.
Get the frogs on their lilies?
There’s a bonus for doing that.
Ditto the lost ducklings who need to be reunited.
You could call these things puzzles, but they aren’t mandatory.
But you could also skip as much as you want and just splash around.
This changes, however, and it took me a while to spot that it was doing so.
Two things here: Naiad is sometimes an awkward puzzle game.
So there’s that.
But there’s something else that redeems this a little.
Naiad makes a brilliant point, in other words, and does it very effectively.
A copy of Naiad was provided for review by developer HiWarp.
