Papetura Review: A Work Of Art?

Papetura’s release date didn’t go by in vain. On my wishlist, since the first tree was cut to make this, I got the notification that it was out and promptly snapped it up with the launch discount. So, was it worth it?

A bit on the fence, to tell the truth. I forgot what it was, just getting the vague impression that it was a point and click. There was a promotional video exploring how it was made (more on that later), and in fear of spoilers, I added to my cart and ‘booted it up’.

Papetura is a very vague game. It encourages exploration and engaging yourself in out of the box thinking, not just for the problem solving, but for your analytical skills to work out what the heck it is you’re supposed to do.

Papetura Review – PC via Steam

Papetura, developed by Petums, is about Pape. It resembles a paper scroll, but not necessarily bearing wisdom as it’s a blank page, excluding the nice character animations and expressions.

The story kickstarts when Pape comes across a character called Tura, who bears magic powers but requires protection from the outside world and the seemingly summoned demons that attempt to destroy it with fire. The goal? Reach safety by solving a series of puzzles.

Animation has fascinated me, especially some of the more absurd things like Brothers Quay, and perhaps why I consider Isolomus a masterpiece. Papetura, too, reaches the same visuals heights and cannot be faulted in its presentation, nor the score by Floex.

When it comes to gameplay, Papetura is pretty short, but whether that’s a negative depends on the person. Perhaps you don’t have the time to commit to hours and hours of gameplay, or maybe you’re expecting value for your money. I paid under a tenner for this, and despite the following comments, it was well worth the price for the art alone.

The Longest 90 Minutes

But this about the gameplay, right? How does it fair? First of all, Pape is incredibly slow in their movements, bordering on the Shade in The Longing. If it weren’t for some great balls of fire they have to dodge early on, I was wondering whether it would have been best represented as a sloth. 

This proved to be a bit of a frustration when backtracking through some of the scenes, trying to piece together what I needed to do. Reverse engineering, if you will. Instead of double-clicking on a doorway to immediately appear in a previous room, or at least dash, they continue to take their time. If it weren’t for the gorgeous environments, I’d perhaps have been a bit more miffed.

You have no idea what anything is, which isn’t necessarily a bad thing as your imagination fills in the blanks. All you can do is hover the mouse about and hope the cursor changes.

As none of the characters talk, they perform a few gestures or depict pictographs in the form of thoughts/dreams/prophecies to hint at what to do. Sometimes they’re beneficial, other times a distraction as it makes no sense. This lack of labelling would usually be something I’d admire, but even the UI had the same approach, and I found myself exiting out of the game by mistake or loading an autosave instead of saving.

Organic Paper Or Man-Made?

Solving a puzzle doesn’t feel very satisfying either because I didn’t know why I did what I did and played a game of chance. What was satisfying was diving deeper and deeper into the world of Papetura, but perhaps this is going to be another niggle.

The visuals are stunning and resemble a stop motion approach. The protagonist is an interesting character, but it was the NPCs that stood out – more so the scenery – it was spectacular. In some places, it resembled natural material that had been scanned in, but it was all CG. Wrong. This is my niggle: the scenes and characters in Papetura are handcrafted out of paper and took over six years to produce.

Technically, it’s superb but looks a bit computer generated. I don’t know what it is, but there’s something that feels a bit too ‘post-production’, getting rid of the blemishes and all. Petums is a true master, and the work they’ve created is fantastic, but the after-effects of putting it into a game make it feel somewhat generated.

Still, that’s a personal preference, and it’s not until I could watch that developer diary that I could truly appreciate it. I encourage you to watch it, it’s fascinating. Besides the aesthetics, though, the fundamental gameplay didn’t blow me away.

There were far too many situations where I didn’t know what I was doing and aimlessly moving the mouse about for a hint at what I could interact with. The atmosphere has been captured, the ambiguity and storytelling work well with less is more, but it just wasn’t for me when it comes to the gameplay.

Papetura Review Summary

A fascinating visual tale with a brilliant accompanying soundtrack, Papetura is incredibly unique and genuinely a work of art. As for the gameplay, it wasn’t so special – almost an afterthought in places and simply not rewarding enough. The aesthetics carry it, but whether or not it’s for you depends on, well…you.