Woven

It's time I actually left a review for this game. It's an all-time favourite and has been since launch, and I replay it at least once every year.

Does this game have rough edges? Yes. Is it definitely not for everyone? Yes. If you're looking for a game that will challenge you, this is not it. If, however, you want to just chill out, wander around, and enjoy the vibe, this is an excellent one.

The environments are gorgeous and extremely charming. The music is stellar. The narrator's performance is a delight, and the most perfect casting I can imagine for the game's storybook vibe. And the story, sparsely scattered throughout the game as it is, sneaks slowly up to deliver an unexpected emotional punch by the end.

Add to that the creative play of the customisation system, as the sprinkles on top of an already lovely experience.

This is very much a flawed gem; there are a lot of valid criticisms among the reviews. But if you're prepared to look past those flaws, Woven is 100% worth giving a shot.

This is a game for kids, be warned, it is not a platformer and you just control Stuffy by mouse clicks, no WASD. Anyway, the game is very cute with rhyming narrator, beautiful woolly artstyle that is just heartwarming. The puzzles are fun and if you want to get all the skins and patterns you will have your work cut out for you.

Woven is a sweet and soft-hearted platformer that will warm the heart of anyone who loves stuffed animals and weaving/fiber arts. The puzzles and environment were really great fun to traverse and the characters are just too cute and very lovable! This might have been a great introduction to 3D platforming, but an arbitrary and opaque autosave system drops an otherwise excellent experience down to merely good.

I still recommend Woven for its friendly, fun vibes and adorable style, but the save system causes unnecessary frustration and its mechanics should be reconsidered for any potential sequels.

Player agency: 0/10.
Anti-explorer game that pretends to be an exploration game.

For starters, no ability to save.
We are at the mercy of every dev whim and mistake.
Like... points of no return.
That trigger when approaching, without touching.
No warnings, no choice given to stay where you are, no fast travel or any mechanism to go back.
This happens barely a few minutes in the intro/tutorial area, immediately yet silently ruining your collectathlon.
(Don't believe me ? Check out the achievement scores.)
Many points of no-return. Inside levels.

Another major issue: sticky feet.
Not only can't you walk over 5 cm blades of grass, you can't pass between them either, despite a clearly big enough space.
You can climb certain slopes, then similar ones stop you; no consistency, no visual pattern/clue.
You walk slowly in a vast yet empty landscape, further slowed down by invisible walls, trying to find passages through maze-like vegetation that ultimately never lead anywhere.

Controls are idiotic.
Interactive objects are finicky with your position, the right spot is easy to miss.
When on it, an action prompt appears.
And while there is only 1 action available, instead of clicking once on a shared button, you still have to select said action in one of your 2 action wheels, a fallible maneuver combining a button hold, a stick move, then a button release.
Controls are also glitchy: The pattern mini-game, already an unpleasant timed exercise, is not designed for a gamepad, which is too slow. So I grabbed a mouse, only to discover that the pointer jumps to the centre of the screen after certain clicks, rendering impossible a simple up-and-down routine.

The main positive is that you can mute the narrator.
Not that he has a bad voice; he hasn't.
Not that he talks too much, although he talks too much.
Because he always tries to rhyme, painfully so.
And you can skip his borborygms no more than you can skip any cutscene, repeated or not, because that would contradict the devs' zero-player-agency policy.

A very sweet game badly done. Limited exploration, ponderous controls and very limited explanation of what to do next - particularly if you return to continue the game. I just ended up bumping around the place trying to click on everything, to no avail.

So close but no thanks

I liked the story and concept for the game and the art style was beautiful. There were just a few things that I feel should be improved. The first is that you should be warned before making a choice that will make it impossible to back track. Since this is an exploration game, you should be able to explore freely without fear of getting pushed forward without all the collectibles. The second thing is that at the end of the game, you don't have a chance to try out all of your patterns and animal parts. I would have loved to be able to have a section once completed to just experiment with the different animals since in the actual storyline, you tend to only choose the animals that have the most efficient limbs. Great game over all but I really would have loved it with these features!

CUTEST. GAME. EVER. I'd definitely recommend it. Being an introvert myself; this calms my nerves and anxiety; that I feel so calm. Infinite/10 stars; ty for such an amazing game.

It's a lovely game, with some good ideas, but all of that is marred by some basic poor design choices...
Controller play is painful, as the game punishes analog control sticks with slow, uncomfortable movement unless you are moving exactly forward to the camera.
Keyboard control, or more accurately, Mouse control, suffers the usual pitfalls of point-and-click in a 3D environment, with camera control getting confused with commands, and actions just feeling really unnatural.
The environment is pretty, but empty, and what it does have has absurdly oversized hitboxes. Two bushes with, apparently, space and a half for Stuffy to pass between them are actually an invisible wall with massive hitboxes stopping stuffy from actually making contact with them. This example is repeated absolutely everywhere, with nearly every object being secretly 1.5x its apparent size.
The game seems to market itself as a Child's First Adventure game, and yet does this more poorly than any Humungous Entertainment point-and-click from my childhood. The environment is empty and boring, the movement is slow and static, but above all, there is some awful tonal dissonance.
The intro video made me wonder if I'd started the right game. It was full of mechanical insects, disorienting effects, harsh sounds, and industrial ambiance.
When the game began properly, I realized that dissonance played an element in the story, but frankly, if I'd been expecting the stuffed animal adventure advertised, and saw the mechanical horrorscape in the intro, child me would have spend hours or even days trying to figure out why this other game was trying to start up when I tried to play Woven.
The writing is also weirdly ill fitting for the childish target audience, with the narrator using middle-school level words in a patchy elementary-school level rhyme pattern, that doesn't have anything that would interest children playing their first adventure game. Heck, it almost seems like it's trying to teach kids to be disappointed in games. I have not yet finished the game, and I will, but I don't think I've ever met a game that ended better than it began.
All of this is harsh, mostly because I know, with a bit of polish, this could have been great. The models and textures are gorgeous, there are some decent puzzle mechanics, rebuilding Stuffy to meet the needs of an area is interesting and fun, but it kind of feels like a plumber and a painter decided to build a house, and while it works, there's no electricity, the rooms are weirdly sized, and every single floorboard squeaks in a different key.

Hello friends,

Today i will write a review about the game named Woven. If you ever played Kirby's Epic Yarn, Yoshi's Wooly World, or any other themed sewing type game, this is similiar to those. Unlike the above games mentioned, Woven is 3d. The game, as said, has some sewing and wool aesthetics to all it's levels. This makes it very unique. The game itself is mostly about exploration, puzzle solving, and finding out what happen to the world. Anyways, onto my pro/cons list:

PROS:

- Wool and sewing asthetics.
- Nice and peaceful music for most of the game.
- Kid friendly game. This game would be great game for those adults who do not want much violence for their children.
- Supports controllers. I used a F710 logitech controller. Basically a xbox type controller.
- Puzzle solving, and finding collectibles.
- Game is slow paced, so you can take your time at it..as much as you want.

CONS:

- Certain points in each level has you not being able to go back, so once you go pass points of no return, you might miss collectibles.
- Some minor bugs. For example, Windows 7 Os users get black screen loading up. After i beat the game, i also got black screen issue.
- Sometimes Stuffy looks in weird ways. So sometimes he looks at weird angles.
- Walking sometimes feels like stuffy is walking sideways.
- You might find minor clipping thru map too.

Recommended. This game is great for young children or adults who don't want to expose their children to violent game. This is a good altenative to those games. I also like the wool and sewing asthetics of the game too.

It's a cute exploration kids game. I find it way too childish for me to truly enjoy it, the narrator kinda annoys me and everything feels clunky. However, I can see kid me or maybe my nephews having fun with this game, so it gets a thumbs up, mainly because I got it with 90% discount. Don't think it's worth it at full price though.

I have beat this game, here is my review chopped up into three sections; the good, the what could be better, and the bad.
tl;dr: horrible movement prevents me from really enjoying this game, it is effectively a point'n'click adventure gone wrong. It is slow paced to a disgusting degree, the customization hates you for looking nice, and the ending is weak as hell.

The good:
The story is compelling enough.
The world is extremely nice to look at and interesting, like Yoshi's wolly world.
The customization of the main character is nice but has a massive problem I will get to later, that being said making a terrible looking stuffed animal is indeed fun.
The graphics and optimization, this game runs smooth as butter.
Game is extremely charming, until you get further in and it stops.

What could be better:
The movement, I tried switching to gamepad and keyboard controls and they both feel terrible. The game is so big and the movement is so terrible (getting stuck on every single piece of the world) that just clicking and letting the game path me was the only bearable thing to do. The movement speed is also absolutely terrible and only at chapter 3, hours into the game, do you get to move faster than a snails pace and at a crappy cost.

If this game played like a plat-former, not even an action one, just have good running/jumping/maybe climbing or something it would have been so much more enjoyable to actually play and to go around collecting things. Instead we got janky click to move awkwardness. I'm not going to want to collect things in your collect-a-thon game if playing it feels terrible. There is a reason it is fun to collect things in Banjo-Kazooie

If I could mario-64 style jump this stuffed animal around I would actually be playing another play-through right now, trying to 100% it even!

The bad:
The customization is both great and terrible. It is terrible because the game forces you to make a horrible looking critter for abilities. Every part in this game has a certain ability with it, for example; one hand could push things, while another can pick objects up, or another lets you fly/hover. To play this game optimally I had to look like a Frankenstein creation at all times; one arm from a huge gorilla (arm that can push/press buttons/pick up object), a wing arm from a toucan, the legs of a Raccoon (the only legs that can both cliff hop and stomp), the head of a Frog to let me sing. You look absolutely horrible and the game forces you to do this. Also when you fly you flap your arms wildly, the wing arm on my critter looked fine but the gorilla arm just awkwardly flaps like a cartoon in a bad way.

If there was a way around this, to assign abilities to parts somehow instead of forcing you to look stupid, I would have enjoyed my time more.

The controls, it's worth stating again; are just terrible, any non-mouse movement controls are unplayable to a fault. Again this game needed tight platforming movement to make it repayable and what we got was point-n-click adventure gone wrong.

The very obviously rushed parts of the game. The final sequence gets built up to, SO MUCH and at the end of the game (no spoilers) there are no puzzles, nothing. You just walk through the end area which takes like 2 minutes at most and the game ends, roll credits. It is extremely obvious the developers either didn't know what to do with it or were tired of making this game and just rushed it through. "They didn't know who saved them or why" yeah, because no one would and it makes no sense.

No polish, other than optimization of the game assets there is nothing more about this game that feels truly polished. The way the character's head snaps around, the animations, the awkward snapping into place to do actions on intractables. So many missing pieces.

Extremely strange design choices, again aping back to my gripes with the customization why did you make the player walk around like a freak to optimally play your game?
Who was this game for? Was it for kids like it kind of seems? There are a lot of really obtuse puzzles, collectibles, and story points that anyone younger than 13.

The game is rated E for everyone 10+, absolutely not; no 11-13 year old is gonna beat this game properly or at least not struggle horribly to find things. Is this for adults? If so why is the story so muted and the horror completely without fangs?

I am left wishing this game could be so much more than it is. If the movement was better and the customization didn't have it's literal legs chopped off I would have loved this game, hell the extremely weak ending would have not bothered me so much too!

Absolutely adorable game! 3D exploration game with great art and music. Honestly reminds me a bit of Myst but nowhere near the frustration. Story is simple, but cute and enjoyable. My one gripe would be that you can't jump and so traversing between elevation can be an annoyance with invisible walls. Further zoom out would be nice as well.

Overall a great game, would highly recommend if you're looking for something to relax to.

for such a soft and fuzzy game, it's longer than i expected, with decent puzzles, and a surprisingly intriguing story. it's totally worth it, in my opinion.

After having started many other games without finishing them, finally I got "hooked" by this one!
In the first run I played for 17 hours, and I just want to start it all over again.
The main character "Stuffy" is just too cute.... it's a pleasure watching him wandering around.
The surroundings also look great: every part of the landscape is woven. The only thing that is not is water.
As the story unfolds, the puzzles become a bit harder, but Stuffy can gain blueprints to get woven as different animals, with various features that help solving these puzzles.
The story takes place in 5 worlds: the meadows, the cliffs, the beach, the rainforest, and finally the desert.
This game may not be for those who are looking for complicated puzzles or adrenaline. But if you want to be amazed like a child, playing in a beautiful environment, in a relaxed way, you will love this story.
I will for sure play again several times in the near or far future.

A beautiful collectible game in a world made of all types of fabric patterns Woven is relaxing as it is also infuriating. A design that should include simple quality of life options for the players who want to explore and collect everything are absent and makes the journey a little less fun.

In Woven you play as a stuffed animal named…. Stuffy who at the start stumbles across a mechanical firefly called glitch. Glitch for some reason needs to get to the moon and this is the adventure of Woven. The story embraces a lot of children's stories from the past as evil has polluted the land and its up to our heroes to save the world. The game is narrated in a Dr Seus like rhyme monotone and it works perfectly. The narration is sort of slow and I wish I could have skipped but no option is available and is just one of the many simple problems the game neglects to offer the player.

Gameplay is very simple in Woven, you enter an area and explore a way to exit the level. If you are not concerned with finding collectibles you can really breeze through the game in a few hrs and is honestly the best way to play right now. Once you enter an area you will find patterns which Glitch will scan. Glitch is also very helpful and will tell you what action to do when you are near something to interact. As an example you need to stomp near a flower to open it up to expose a pattern. Glitch in a word like bubble will show the stomp icon. Patterns can be simply taped along a wall, hidden in a flower or given as a reward completing a puzzle. You will explore 5 regions and along the way pick up blueprints of different animals that provide different abilities, solve some basic puzzles,find story elements, and collect those precious patterns. All of this works with no problem, however, to solve some of the puzzles and just explore you will need to use different character attributes and that will require constant back tracking to a sewing machine as there is no fast travel in the game, ugh. Another missing feature for a collectible game is the ability to return to an area or offer an end game option as the achievements are all made up for finding collectibles AND there is no warning of when you are leaving a point of no return. The first area alone has 3 points of no return and you will have no clue if you have everything.

As i mentioned above you will collect blueprints that will give you a new animal to stitch. These animals come with different attributes like stomp, fly, push button, jump, punch to name a majority. These highlight a few other issues, one the punch is just weak as your arm barely moves and the sound is like hitting a batch of feathers(ffff!). The most annoying attribute is jumping as you can only jump certain places that are marked on the ground. You select jump and your character goes into an animation. I dont know why its just not simple button press and its just really slow.

Woven is unique as it is beautiful with everything in the world made of patterns including animals, plants and the land. Being able to collect and attach your found patterns to your character was simple and fun and once you started mix and matching different parts for attributes your plaid looking parrot with a rhino green flower leg and pink cat arm will make you laugh. The game ran really well with no issues and there is a good set of graphic options for every system. The one issue is while it does include ultrawide the menu was semi cut off when changing fabrics so late in the game i had to change resolution to see all the patterns.

I would easily recommend Woven to players who just want to explore a unique world, but one of my main reasons for buying was the exploration and collectible aspect of the journey. I ended up playing through the game twice and using a complete guide for the collectibles, there are some late in the game that are impossible as they sit in shadows or blend into the environment. A few additional simple features get patched and I will change my recommendation but for those looking for a collectible/achievement journey be warned and look elsewhere for now.


Positives

Beautiful world to explore
Relaxing and simple game play
Good narration


Negatives

No ability to return to areas
No Map or fast travel
Some patterns difficult to see
Sound design is weak
Jumping
No ability to skip cutscenes or dialogue

A charming little adventure. Not overly difficult and concentrates a little too much on collectibles, but the story pacing is just about perfect. It has a wonderful narration in rhyme and you can't say anything bad about the fluffy scenery. This was definitely worth the wait and something I'll play again during stressful times.

What many people don't know is that the Five Nights At Freddys developer started out by making a child game with animatronics in them. When people pointed out to him that the animatronics looked scary and freakish he took that critique to heart and made FNAF.

Why am I telling you this? Because from the trailer and screenshots I certainly got a unintentional horror vibe from this game. Which is basically the only reason I was interested in it.

So then when I started the game I was at first worried that the game might actually be intenionally scary. The opening sequence is a giant robot mantis picking you up to the sound of the most intense music you'll hear in a while. Then we see the main character: a elephant plushy that is losing filling and is walking with a limp like a zombie. There are rusty metal structures in the wool world with spider like extremities. The narration while soothing also has a slight sinister undertone to it all.

But it is definitely all delightfully unintentionally! It's supposed to be a very simple game for children. It's sadly a little to competent for my liking as the unintentional creepy stuff is too rare to really enjoy it. But then again that way the actual game game is also playable.

So my recommendation: Buy it if you are into "so bad it is good" games, so that the developers can go forth to make the next horror game a la FNAF.

I bought this game based on the demo rather then doing what i usually do and checking out a let's play on youtube. Big mistake, i found the puzzle game they put in instead of scanning other creatures to get new blueprints too difficult i can do mental puzzles better than ones where you need to track and adjust four different things at once. I like the concept of the game the way it was at first, however like with many games, apparently developers only want to sell to younger people, who have excellent hand eye coordination not people who may not have fast reflexes or good hand eye coordination anymore. I wish i still had the demo, but it appears to no longer be available.

Beautiful puzzle solving game that lets you earn your appearance over time. Search all corners to find different gubs. Uses multiple mechanics to solve puzzles.

Been playing this for several hours now... besides being really beautiful, Woven has a great story. Nothing is really as it seems. This is a wonderful point & click adventure. My only complaint is that some of the puzzles require a level of skill that I just can't accomplish (which means my completionist soul cries.) Of course, not all the puzzles HAVE to be solved, but if you want every single one of the patterns for your collection, it's frustrating. (I'm looking at YOU, crane race.)

I LOVE THIS GAME. It's adorable, runs on my toaster (and looks fantastic), immersive & did I mention adorable?
I immediately felt connected to the characters, the world & the narration.

BONUS
My cat also loves this game. Watching Glitch is his new favorite thing.

Very cute game, Woven was on my wishlist for a very long time and I am glad it finally got a release!
I love to collect things in games but it's also good that most of the patterns etc are optional. You can just play the game at a leisurely pace or you can rush it and that works for me.
I also really appreciate the control options. You can choose between just using a mouse, using a mouse & keyboard or using just a controller. The game allows you to move Stuffy with either WASD or with the arrows keys & I actually often find it easier to use the arrows keys so again, that works great for me. No need to remap keys either, it just works!

I invested less than an hour before giving up. The game is cute and colorful but I struggled with the controls (Steam Controller did not do so well so I resorted to keyboard/mouse) and the absence of any instructions or tutorial. I ended up stuck, thinking I had a control issue when I actually had tasks I had not performed. For this game, it may be beneficial to watch a You Tube of some game play to get the basic gist before dropping into the world of Woven without a clue as to how to proceed. Otherwise, it is a case of trial and error until something you do works. I would only recommend this game to those who enjoy trying to puzzle their way through learning the basic mechanics of game play.