I must say, every new piece of footage or screenshot that drops for Unravel, Coldwood Interactive’s upcoming sidescrolling puzzle platformer, looks prettier than the last. The latest developer diary explains how Yarny – the game’s doll-like protagonist who’s made of yarn – was born from ideas of love and connectedness.
No, honestly, I’ve got something in my eye.
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By using loose parts of his body, Yarny is fit to traverse the game’s near-realistic interpretation of the Swedish countryside, but his loose limbs have metaphorical roots too, it seems. Here’s Coldwood’s creative director Martin Sahlin explaining how Yarny came to be:
“I had this thought,” says Sahlin. “What if we could make a game about love? A game where the bonds we form with other people were actual, real physical bonds, like strands of yarn. And what if you could play as a character that was actually made from that stuff?”
Sahlin goes on to explain how the idea evolved from there – that it kept growing and growing to the point where Yarny’s embodiment of the concept meant Unravel was a “game that had to be made”.
Since its announcement at EA’s E3 press meeting last year, we’ve not been fed an inordinate amount of information regarding its intricacies, but does that really matter when it looks this pretty? It’s due for release on February 9 but in the meantime you should check out its puzzle mechanics in action, as shown off at last year’s Gamescom.