Weaving Tides is easily one of the more creative ideas I’ve encountered recently: an action adventure set in a woven world, in which you solve puzzles and fight enemies by weaving ribbons of thread through the environment. The good news is that, judging from the recently-released public demo, Weaving Tides is looking like it could really live up to the potential of its concept, and then some.
Though the demo is relatively brief, running half an hour to 45 minutes, it’s a good showcase of the variety of the sorts of puzzles players can expect. Everything comes down to the carpet dragon on whose back you ride, and who can fly down below any woven section of the ground. By doing so begin threading a ribbon produced by the dragon’s tail, which you can then use to weave all manner of patterns and tie fragments of the world together.
Things start simple, with you fixing up small holes in the fabric by weaving over them (fortunately, you don’t have to be as meticulous as you would with real weaving—as long as you weave through the general area of the gap, the game will fill in the blanks). Soon, other puzzles task you with weaving patterns using special woven nodes, using clues from gathered from the nearby environment to figure out what shape you’re meant to create. One of my favourites involves rescuing sheep that have floated up into the sky by tying the threads they’re attached to back down to the ground.
There’s a similarly woven-themed twist to Weaving Tides’ combat. You don’t really fight enemies directly, aside from a dash attack you can use to briefly stun foes. Defeating them means using your ribbons to tie them to the ground, which is sometimes easier said than done with quick foes or those that require a few threads before they’ll stay down.
The demo culminates in a nifty boss fight against a mysterious flying beast with a long tail. It attacks by swooping across the battlefield and plummeting down from the sky, and in order to take it out, you need to wait for your opening and tie down fragments of its tail. Once properly bound, the tail fragment will break off; repeat a few times, and the boss will fall to the ground, unable to fly, ready to be defeated once and for all with a few loops of ribbon.
The Weaving Tides demo also gives a really good taste of what to expect from its unique world. The playable segment takes place in a desert-like area of the world, complete with an abundance of palm trees and cacti—a common video game setting. And yet, thanks to the woven aesthetic, it doesn’t look like any other game desert I’ve see; this is a game that really leans into its own vision of the world, and it’s a beautiful one.
I’ve been looking forward to Weaving Tides since I first heard about it, and playing the demo makes me much more excited to see what the full game will have to offer. Even with just a little slice of the game, I can see that Follow the Feathers has what it takes to deliver on Weaving Tides ambitions. I can’t wait to see where they’e able to take these clever puzzles, and the story that will unfold through them.
Weaving Tides is coming to Nintendo Switch, PC, and Mac later this year.