Evan’s Remains Review - A Puzzle Platformer With A Touching Story

Written by Chris Woodside on June 15, 2020

Reviews: A fantastic and mysterious adventure that masterfully weaves together fantastic puzzle platforming with the gripping storytelling of visual novels.

One of the latest games to emerge from crowdfunding through the Kickstarter program, Evan’s Remains is the first game developed solely by the Argentine game developer Matias Schmied. While Evan’s Remains does not feature a ton of additional content to keep you coming back after the roughly two-hour adventure, this first game from Schmied weaves together masterful puzzle platforming that continues to challenge throughout the game, all while telling a powerful and emotional story in a charming and beautifully crafted world

The adventures begin with the player controlling a young girl named Dysis, who has been tasked with visiting a remote and abandoned island in the middle of the Pacific Ocean. The titular Evan, supposedly a genius child, is missing. A letter has turned up that asks for Dysis, who has never met Evan, to visit this island in search of him. Promised a large payday by a large corporation, Dysis agrees to risk her life on this uncharted island in search of the boy genius.

While there is little in terms of the variety of the gameplay, Evan’s Remains provides puzzle platforming from a 2D perspective at its very finest. Players are tasked with completing a series of two to three puzzles in each zone. The puzzles are fairly straightforward. By jumping on blocks, the terrain of the monoliths (the setting of each puzzle) changes. The goal in each puzzle is to use the blocks to create a path to the top of the monolith into the next area. The initial puzzles in the first few zones feature these basics mechanics. However, as the player progresses through the game, new types of blocks are introduced, such as blocks that teleport to other areas of the monolith, and some blocks which will launch Dysis into the area, going higher depending on how far of a drop on to the block she made. Some of the best puzzles that stuck out in my mind were in the late game when several or all of these mechanics were combined in the same puzzle.

What makes the puzzle platforming of Evan’s Remains so effective is the straight forward accessibility and progression of these puzzles. Players are not ever put in a position where challenges require skilled acrobatics or frantic rushing in order to complete these puzzles. Each of the two dozen or so puzzles scattered throughout the seven zones focus on challenging your mind more than they challenge your reflexes or speed. While none were difficult enough to prevent progress for more than five minutes or so (there is an achievement for spending 15 minutes on a single puzzle, and none of the puzzles proved to be challenging enough to take this long), they are just challenging enough that when you do finally reach the other side of the monolith the player is rewarded with a sense of accomplishment and feeling smart. These provide for an exceptional gameplay loop that keeps you looking forward to each puzzle in the zones. If any of these puzzles do prove too challenging, perhaps for those inexperienced with the genre, there is an option in the menu to skip an individual puzzle.

While the challenge and difficulty of the puzzles may not keep you in one zone for too long, the beautiful artistic detail of this game just may. The game begins on the beach of the island, where Dysis has just arrived. Throughout the game, each zone will bring you to different environments throughout the island, including water plants, a seemingly abandoned city on the island, and even a beautiful flower meadow. Evan’s Remains sceneries are all crafted in painstakingly beautiful pixel art that makes it easy to get lost on this tiny island in the Pacific. The art is matched with a gorgeous soundtrack that perfectly matches the mood of the game, throughout the ups and downs of its somewhat complicated narrative. While Evan’s Remains is not flawless, the presentation proves to be one of the most wonderfully presented games of the entire year.

Even with the gameplay of Evan’s Remains strong enough to keep you going throughout the entire two-hour adventure, the standout of this game was the emotional and surprisingly complex narrative that threaded it all together. Early on in the story, it is easy to relate to the protagonist, as at one point Dysis reveals that even though she never met Evan, she was offered such a large amount of money and that she would “do anything for money.” Including, she says, hurting someone. A powerful point that truly speaks to the “meaninglessness” of the world. Throughout your adventure, you encounter mysterious and shy figures and a boy who is exploring the monoliths in a last-minute attempt to save his dying sister. Dysis quickly discovers that this is not an ordinary rescue mission, as she attempts to connect the dots between who Evan is and what significance the island holds. While the end game reveals of this mystery can be a bit hard to follow, and perhaps even convoluted if careful attention is not paid throughout the story, it is hard not to feel a mix of genuine emotions when the story reaches its conclusion. While epic storytelling and puzzle platforming are not often associated with each other, Schmied is able to show exactly how compelling of a story could be told through rather minimalist gameplay and art styles.

Despite the very short playtime, the game proves to be one of the most compelling narratives in a video game in quite some time. Not only does Evan’s Remains excel with this masterful storytelling, but Matias Schmied combines this with gameplay that pushes back against the player’s mind, without being too difficult to serve as an impediment to experiencing the story from beginning to end. The short playtime, in fact, works to its benefit. This is a story you will want to experience in one sitting and likely return to many times later. Even after the credits roll there is sure to be a genuine interest in the next masterpiece Matias Schmied has up his sleeve.