Flow Weaver is a narrative-driven adventure game in VR with puzzles, created by Stitch Media.
Format
Style of Play:
- VR
- Play on demand
Required Equipment: VR headset – It’s only available to be played on Oculus headsets (Rift, Quest).
Recommended Team Size: 1
Play Time: about 3 hours
Price: $19.99
Booking: purchase and play at your leisure
Description
Flow Weaver is a narrative-driven adventure game with puzzles. This is a seated VR game (no actual walking around the space.) You can pick up objects, examine objects, place objects to solve puzzles, teleport, observe the environment, and watch cutscenes.
Hivemind Review Scale
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Tammy McLeod’s Reaction
This game is a decent game in the point-and-click adventure style, but I wouldn’t consider it an escape game. The game mechanic is an interesting concept. It is an extremely linear game, but the next step is not often strongly clued, so I spent a lot of time traveling back and forth trying to figure out what to do next. I was often allowed to interact with elements that appear to belong to solvable albeit tedious puzzles, but in truth they were actually not yet completable. This was frustrating, as there is no hint system to indicate that I was on the wrong track. On a couple of occasions I had to restart my game, as it would get into a buggy state and it would become impossible to proceed; objects were not properly recognized, or some objects would also mysteriously reset their location, while others did not. Perhaps I am spoiled by escape games being generally more guided in their design and gameplay. However, this game should still be fun for lateral-thinking players who enjoy interacting with game environments.
Cara Mandel’s Reaction
Flow Weaver is a heavily narrative-driven VR adventure game. While I enjoyed this game overall, it wasn’t without its hiccups. There was some glitchiness that felt unintended. Objects were able to pass through walls and certain items disappeared on occasion or became unmovable. The game is intended to be played in a seated position but on occasion I found there to be objects that were unreachable next to me on the ground. I would recommend playing this game seated in a chair rather than on a couch, for example. I did enjoy the story and the voiceovers were well performed. The game wouldn’t, however, allow for the skipping of cutscenes, which proved frustrating when having to return to levels in different play sessions. Having to sit through long monologues multiple times made for a slightly annoying gameplay experience. I enjoyed the mechanisms of magic and the ability to gain new powers and unlock additional realms to explore. The design of the game was fantastical and beautiful. If you’re looking for a game with more story, this might be a great option for you! And if you find yourself getting hung up on certain challenges, you can find some helpful walkthroughs on YouTube to assist in your journey. I finally caved and resorted to taking some nudges in this manner and was glad I did. The game contained a few red herrings with the solution being a bit of a leap of imagination in my opinion. Overall, it was a fun and whimsical adventure game that should provide a few hours of enjoyable play.
Matthew Stein’s Reaction
After savoring The Room VR: A Dark Matter, I’ve been on the lookout for other escape room-inspired VR games to scratch that itch. I had high hopes that Flow Weaver would be exactly that, and in many regards it was: stunning artwork transported me to expansive fantastical worlds, and the game was filled with some really delightful and unexpected puzzle interactions.
Unfortunately, the game is riddled with implementation bugs at a level I’d expect to see in an early-stage beta. A lack of collision detection makes it dizzying to move objects and easy to lose them. Game state doesn’t always persist when moving between rooms, and object respawning is highly unpredictable. It’s easy to accidentally retoggle lengthy cutscenes and not obvious how to exit them. I hit a handful of severe edge case glitches which forced me to restart the game. I’m not sure how a game of this scale made it to launch in this condition, but the unpolished technical implementation doesn’t nearly meet the high level of art, writing, and interaction design.
All that aside, there were also some points for improvement in the game itself. A few object placement interactions felt environmentally underclued, more a guessing game than a puzzle. Certain in-game narration providing clues on what to do next was more redundant than helpful. The ending felt more like a non sequitur than a cliffhanger, though I hope this indicates an eventual sequel.
If you have a decent tolerance for glitchiness and high skill level with VR controls, go check this game out now. It does some really amazing stuff. I can’t really recommend this game broadly, though, until the developers smooth out the gameplay.