Hello again!
You may be thankful to hear that this game is the exact opposite of Aether in that while the graphics might be minimalistic, the gameplay not only exists but functions nigh-perfectly.
Amaia is certainly the most relaxing game I've played on this list so far. The pleasing visual style and soothing musical score makes it a game one can play to get away from one's troubles. It reminds me of Braid in a lot of ways, provided you replace the deep, perplexing narrative with a basic storyline held together with a string of references to other games, films and internet culture. I'd be surprised if someone catches all of them without using the google machine. I personally was sent on an amusing trek through youtube because I looked up something written on a signpost in level 2 (hooray for tangential learning. The folks at Extra Credits would be proud).
The gameplay is simple. It's a top-down puzzle game that commits the gaming venial sin of explaining how to solve the puzzles through the medium of rock carvings in the foreground, but gets away with it because it still allows a good amount of room for thought and doesn't tell you how exactly you accomplish the feats prophesied on the stones of fate.
This game does a great job of challenging the player's mind as well as his or her reflexes. It left me with a smile, and thus gets a much coveted gold star.
Any of you who have played this game and read my previous posts will no doubt be wondering why I haven't brought up the fact that this game has no save feature yet. It may be true that I find this to be among the most offensive of game design flaws, but this game gets away with it for including a level selector that has all four levels unlocked at the start. 0xCELERATOR and AEscher could learn a thing or two from that. Granted, using the level select means you won't get to read the little block of text before a level, but trust me, you aren't missing much. It certainly provides an incentive to plow through the story mode, but isn't enough of a punishment to be frustrating.
On the topic of punishment, your sprite's death animation takes no more than a second. In addition, it is kind of amusing to see your character do that adorable little faceplant into the spiked ground. Nice touch.
Something that makes this game even more impressive is that it was a Freshman project. If nothing else, it certainly makes one look back and shake his or her head at A Series of Tubes, a senior-made game more broken than a copy of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde that's been put in a dishwasher.
Do yourself a favor, o precious reader. Play this game. I won't lie, though it's not the longest of games, it's not a quick, five minute popcorn game like the others I've reviewed so far. Trust me, though, it's worth your time, especially since it's free.
Links
Amaia: https://www.digipen.edu/?id=1170&proj=26135
A trailer for the game (warning: contains the answers to some puzzles. Kind of a spoiler):http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5eiLZSoFh-M
