Find Your Way, and Maybe Yourself, Across Incredible and Unsettling Dreamscapes

The Thrill of the Chase

Chasing the Unseen is a unique and fascinating game that I think will be quite polarising amongst players, even for those who are fans of other platformers and exploration games.  Some, like me, will get a thrill out of navigating the game’s bizarre and overwhelming environments, enjoying the journey, while others may find it confusing, possibly leading to frustration. But Chasing the Unseen is a game that is unwavering in its vision, clearly wanting to deliver a particular type of experience, which is something to be applauded.

I had an excellent time playing the demo for Chasing the Unseen back in February, and I did my best to convey that in my stream of consciousness style preview, which you can read HERE.

Climbing Higher, Going Deeper

You are supposed to feel small, vulnerable and at the whims of the world you find yourself in.

Simply put, Chasing the Unseen is a 3^rd person exploration platformer that has the player navigating impossibly surreal environments inhabited by colossal creatures, all floating in a dreamlike expanse. The game feels quite esoteric with very little information given to the player throughout and leaves you wandering these incredible dreamscapes to make sense of what is happening and where to go. At the final level of the game, you are given more context, but it feels as though the game was designed to be interpreted by the player with minimal bias. This goes a long way to add to the mysterious feel of Chasing the Unseen but is also one of the main reasons why I think some people will not vibe with it, struggling with the lack of direction both thematically and physically.

Running, jumping, climbing, and gliding are all the actions at your disposal, with only certain surfaces able to be climbed and a stamina bar for both your grip and gliding. Limitations like this highlight that sense of helplessness that I felt through my whole playtime; a diminutive figure lost and wandering in a place that feels both serene and inhospitable. This is no power fantasy; there aren’t power ups to unlock, stats to increase or new gear to buy. You are supposed to feel small, vulnerable and at the whims of the world you find yourself in. I found it an intoxicating feeling, and something that is rarely explored in video games, especially outside of the Horror genre. Each level is a puzzle for you to figure out, much like an escape room where you must rely more on your intuition than your instincts.

Each level has its own twist on the same formula of reaching the end of the stage, but never changes the core mechanics of the game. This type of design, coupled with the low stakes nature of the life/checkpoint system, gave me the confidence to try all manner of things: gliding to far off outcrops, or dropping from high heights to grab onto a climbable surface. The uncomfortable sensation of falling into the waiting emptiness never fully went away, but it was the prickly unease needed to give the game that tension.

There were some moments of frustration when climbing on certain surfaces, the ones that moved underneath you more specifically, and I could see this coupled with the minimal guidance offered as the source of some players’ chagrin.

…believe me when I say that the monstrous, crimson leviathan is only a taste of what is to come.

There are certain objects that feature in all the levels that add some comforting familiarity and that small amount of guidance to your playtime. Cairns, stacked piles of stones act as checkpoints you save your progress and return to in the case of you falling into the yawning abyss. Glowing orbs act as “lives”, returning you to the place you fell from, and teleporting you back to your last cairn when you run out. Pressing a button will create a faint beam that points to the next nearest cairn; a helpful tool that gives you an idea of where you need to go without pointing out the way to get there. The last object are small, furry, and very erratic creatures that seem to live in these abstract planes. Reminding me of capybara, they’re a physical manifestation of our furtive thoughts, according to the game. These act as the game’s collectible, but they won’t make that easy for you, running away from the player until cornered or caught.

The game is level based, with seven levels and a secret one you unlock by collecting all the game’s collectibles. Each level has its own feel and focus, with the demo covering the first two levels which feature a giant red octopus you eventually must ride to progress. I don’t want to go into too much detail on each level as part of the game’s strength comes in the marvels and oddities you come across as you play, but believe me when I say that the monstrous, crimson leviathan is only a taste of what is to come. There is a level select area you travel back to between levels, a patch of ethereal lotus flowers floating in a dark grey void, with each lotus flower representing a level. A place of calm that acts as a type of reprieve without losing the uncomfortable nature of these oppressive environments.

I finished my playthrough of the main game in just over five hours, but didn’t come close to finding all the furry collectibles scattered across each level. I feel the urge to explore these gargantuan environments even without the incentive to unlock the secret level; the levels themselves feel like undiscovered shores, whole new worlds waiting to be discovered and understood!

The Space Between Dreams

 The incredible landscapes that you traverse through Chasing the Unseen really are the star of the show. Jogging across giant fractal structures floating peacefully in eternity, a misty emptiness that stretches out in all directions. A faint sky spotted with clouds resides above you, never seeming to get closer the further you progress, with the dulled rays of a distant sun casting eerie shadows across everything. Sparce grass covers areas you can walk on, a helpful indicator of where you can go, especially when making a risky jump. The muted palette of the environments adds to their dreamlike quality, like the brain fog that makes it harder to remember details of a dream once you’ve woken up. I described my feelings about the game as such in my preview, and it stays true. I kept trying to make sense of what these structures were, sometimes they made me think of warped bones, other times dried out coral, and I still can’t settle on a perfect description. Beautiful and terrifying at the same time, these incredible dreamscapes would fill me with a sense of awe constantly.

These spaces are neither dreams or nightmares, but feel closer to a visual representation of how our minds are when we sleep…

It feels to me that there is less of a soundtrack to Chasing the Unseen, but really a soundscape that enhances the unsettling nature of the game. A deep ambience pervades throughout, as a disjointed variety of sounds break through to draw attention to or highlight certain events. The light, spectral chimes that play when you save at a cairn, to the low warbling of the digeridoo when you respawn after a fall, there doesn’t seem any rhyme or reason to these, and it only draws attention to the unknowable nature of this world. The familiar in an alien context, both audibly and visually, makes for very powerful and unsettling design!

These spaces are neither dreams or nightmares, but feel closer to a visual representation of how our minds are when we sleep, sifting through all the information we have gathered that day. As we fall to sleep random thoughts are likely to pop into our heads and new mental links are made between pieces of information, and the random nature of Chasing the Unseen’s world is the best interpretation of that mental state I have ever seen.

A Journey Worth Taking

Chasing the Unseen is an evocative and challenging game that does an excellent job of creating a world and gameplay experience that captures the internal struggles that many deal with on life’s journey. The combination of these surreal dreamscapes with the strange and unsettling sound design creates a constantly unnerving and fascinating experience like no other game I have played.

The lack of direction and handholding may be off putting to some, but I do feel that it is the right decision to create this unique video game and have it be its most impactful. I absolutely adore Chasing the Unseen and how it made me feel, existential dread included , and I hope that we get more game likes it in the future!

9/10

Review Key provided by Strange Shift Studios, and reviewed on Steam.

Available on: PC