Growing up on a healthy dose of Sierra and LucasArts point-and-click adventure games has instilled within me a love for the genre that’s both a blessing and a curse. The gift is in the euphoric bliss experienced whenever I play an excellent point-and-click game and get instantly thrown through time and space back to when the biggest frustration in my life was the puzzle I was currently stuck on. The curse comes into play with the countless terrible point-and-click games you must play to find just one gem.
But dear reader, that’s why I’m here, so shovel through the piles of dirt to uncover the treasures buried below. Today, that prize is called Tohu – a point-and-click adventure just as odd as its name, in all the right ways.
At its core, Tohu is a deceptively challenging game that lures you in with its calming colour palette and adorable character design and punches you in the pace with the logic. Don’t get me wrong, Tohu is far from the most challenging puzzle game. Still, because of the light tone set by the game itself, the complexity of some puzzles does come by surprise.
The game contains a veritable plethora of puzzle games, from classic inventory puzzles where you need to collect/combine items to environment manipulation puzzles. Alongside these are trading puzzles, time-travel, combinations, patterns and even a couple of stand-alone logic puzzles. But instead of ever feeling like these puzzles were bogging the game down, they are the heart and soul of the game itself.
Now I know I usually focus on the narrative behind the games I enjoy. While Tohu does have a story, it’s surprisingly irrelevant to the game. All you need to know is that you control a character known as “The Girl” who has the unique and handy ability to turn herself into a huge mechanical golem. Using these two forms, you will explore the world, helping out wherever possible.
One important thing to note with Tohu is that the game is entirely mouse-driven, and one of two things will happen depending on where you click. Either you are clicking as you, the player sitting behind your screen – this type of interaction will usually create minor changes to the environment – or as either of the game’s two protagonists. Using both these methods is vital to your success in traversing through the screens and solving the puzzles within them.
One of the features of the game I appreciated is the included hint mini-game. Once the puzzle is solved, the game will show you a map highlighting all the goals (and solutions) in a pictorial style. This method is super helpful to ease those moments where you find yourself clicking everything on everything multiple times over, hoping for something to work.
But through it all, the one element that truly makes your time in Tohu feel unique and memorable is the light, airy and calming feelings radiating from the screen. Everything feels like it was designed to be soothing, from the environment to the characters, music and more. This relaxing atmosphere keeps the game always on the side of challenging and never on the side of frustration.
