3D platforming has had a bit of a boom period over the past decade thanks to games like Super Mario Odyssey bringing interest back into them as a AAA-level game, while titles like A Hat in Time and Yooka-Laylee aimed to bring attention to them in the indie sphere. A Hat in Time really lit that spark, while Yooka-Laylee especially aimed to recapture the greatness of Rare’s 3D platforming peak with a Banjo-Kazooie-inspired adventure.
PaperKlay aims to bring the collect-a-thon into a different realm with a paper-crafted world that stands out from anything else on the market. There aren’t many games that use paper as a visual theme at all beyond Paper Mario and in a similar vein, PaperKlay fills its world with things that you could seemingly make with large bits of cardboard. A demo has been available on Steam for about a year now and showcases the unique game world and its gameplay mechanics. The game’s more open world is broken up into smaller biomes to explore and collect things in and getting lost is of minimal concern thanks to breadcrumbing.
A World of Whimsy
PaperKlay aims to bring the collect-a-thon into a different realm with a paper-crafted world
By including the game’s version of little coins or in this case buttons, you can easily see where you haven’t been and still find new areas to explore within those setups by jumping, gliding,and bumping around thanks to trampoline-style bounce pads. Players have a lot of freedom as well and it’s impressive to see for the genre because many put on a course, and while you can do that to an extent here, being left to your own devices allows the players to just roam around and get lost in the world and that’s rare for 3D platformers.
Like Clockwork
In playing the demo several times over the past year, I’ve found PaperKlay to be unlike anything else on the 3D platforming market and it’s exciting to see it finally be released in full. Having more of this adventure to enjoy is cool to see and anyone who wants something a bit different in a 3D platformer should give it a shot. We’ve seen the genre get resurrected a bit with things like the recent Crock remake, and even Yooka-Laylee getting a remake of sorts soon, and this fits right into this new boom period for 3D platforming adventure. PaperKlay is available now onSteamfor $13.49 thanks to its 10% launch week discount.
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