Solo developer Florent “Salty” Martinais’ debut title is a curious one, and I use that description purposefully. It is an abstract adventure that refuses to hand-hold at any point in time, and is all the better for it. It’s through player curiosity and trial-and-error problem solving that players understand exactly what surrounds them.
What Surrounds Us is a hex-tiled (although each tile is a circle) abstract representation of nature. Players take on the role of a creature, initially with one ability: an echolocation bark-ribbit thing that echoes out around 5 tiles around you. You’ll soon find that the world around you echoes back, and each individual creature type around you will do different things. Some are friendly, some are aggressive and will eat you, and most need manipulating in order to solve environmental puzzles to progress forward. None of this is explained, but by watching creature reactions and trying different approaches, you’ll learn the rules of the ecosystem.
The overarching story is that nature has been corrupted by a strange abstract being. This closes off paths, corrupts creatures into evil versions of themselves, or segments creatures into locked-off areas so you can’t use them to progress. As you move around the grid, as you echo, each creature or corruption echoes back, creating a strange alien symphony that works beautifully alongside the bulbous, dewy soft music. It’s incredibly satisfying to watch unfold, and when you spot a pattern and a way to progress, each “a-ha” moment amps up that satisfaction. An early example has a creature that senses you are nearby and can outrun you to eat you up. The only escape has a narrow passage guarded by a Venus Flytrap-like creature that’ll eat a passerby. By carefully timing a leap and a run, you can lure the chaser into the mouth of the flytrap and solve two issues at once. Elsewhere, your echo can scare creatures away from you, changing their patrol paths, causing them to bump into each other, creating power-up pearls to allow you to echo further and reach something else out of reach. Curiosity, play, and trying new ideas are what reward players, and it takes a lot of confidence and clever design to make What Surrounds Us work.
It works incredibly well. As you progress through the three biomes in What Surrounds Us, you’ll acquire new abilities, which open the world up in a similar manner to a Metroidvania. You won’t be backtracking unless you want to collect all the hidden collectables, but the option is there. One ability is a leap, and it’s regularly used to cross islands and land on other creatures as they float in the sea. My only real critique of What Surrounds Us comes from this ability. As movement is hex-based, I found myself struggling to select the right direction to move when leaping if there was a time pressure of sinking land or a chasing enemy. In trying to be helpful, the game auto-selects the initial direction it thinks you want to move to. Sometimes that is very helpful, but when there’s a choice, it’s less helpful. Death happens often in these situations, with me anyway, so I was grateful the game is generous with its checkpoint system.
The leap niggle aside, What Surrounds Us is a delightful game to play. In a world full of hand-holding and auto-play idlers, having a game that lets you creatively figure out solutions in a somewhat open-ended way is a breath of fresh air. What Surrounds Us is bold, engrossing, varied, and constantly surprising across its playtime. How long it’ll take to complete will vary hugely depending on how you tackle curious gaming. This game scratched an itch in my brain I didn’t know I needed scratching, and I think it deserves a place in the collection of many gaming connoisseurs.
Also… when’s the soundtrack coming to Bandcamp or Subvert, please?
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