If you look at the world of games at the moment, it seems wool is definitely in. Nintendo's adorable Yoshi's Woolly World hits stores today, sending the lovable green dinosaur on a decidedly cuddly platforming adventure - and now it seems EA are getting in on the fabric obsession. Easily one of the highlights of their E3 conference last week, Unravel is an adorable puzzle platformer following the adventures of a little red wool guy, Yarny.
The man himself!
But lets backtrack a little first, because the idea for Unravel is a rather interesting tale. The little woolly protagonist began life on a family camping holiday, where Martin Sahlin, the Creative Director at Coldwood studios, overflowing with ideas but with few ways to channel them in the remote countryside, decided to make himself a little woollen companion from a couple of pieces of wire and some red yarn. The creation, christened Yarny, was then snapped in all kinds of idyllic Scandinavian settings, in various predicaments, and the photos he took then formed the basis of the game. Unravel itself is intended to be more of a personal tale; a platformer with a heart; and as the little guy unravels as he moves, it's supposed to represent love and the bonds we make throughout our lives, and how we ourselves unravel when separated from the things and people we've grown attached to. Apparently.
Yarny's yarn-ness plays into Unravel's physics-based worlds in various unexpected and creative ways. Integral to it's puzzle solving, you'll have to use his stray thread to overcome obstacles both big and small - whether it's simply using it to swing across a gap, safely climbing down a tree, hitching a ride on a flying kite, or something much more complex, like creating interweaving strings of bridges and ramps to mount larger objects stuck in your path. Leaving tangles of yarn in his wake as he moves from one area to the next, you'll work your way through "a heartfelt story of love, longing, and the ties that bind" as you help a lonely old woman reconnect with the memories of her long lost family, all "told completely without words" with Yarny being "the red thread that runs through it all".
What happens when we run out of wool, we wonder...
Unravel will be hitting the Playstation 4, Xbox One and PC, although exactly when is still to be revealed. All we know is that it's looking seriously adorable and rather cool - why not revel in it's awesomeness in the reveal trailer below:
