What horrible beasts we can make ourselves be in our minds — TheAudio, circa 2022

REalM Walk of Soul employs the show, don't tell approach for its storytelling, which I adore. I like not being treated like a toddler incapable of understanding subtext and needing everything to be spoon-fed to me. So, I was delighted to see this twisted, nightmarish world ingrained with symbolism, metaphors, and subtle hints which slowly revealed themselves to me.

Besides the visual aid, the game draws from many other avenues to tell its story — collectables description, creepy homemade short videos, NPCs design, and sporadic dialogue. It all comes together to tell the tale of our heroine, Iris. Who is she, why is she in this bizarre world, and what dark secrets lurk deep within her heart? All your questions will be answered when the credits roll for the nth time. Yes, multiple playthroughs are required to fully comprehend the tale of Iris.

Where it all begins — the heart of the realm, the Nexus

But this is where I'll stop any form of story discussion altogether. The reason is simple — the game deserves the honour of taking your virginity, not me.

We can talk about the gameplay — nothing to spoil there besides prepare to cry.

Brains over brawn

While there is a bit of platforming, enemy and spiky things avoiding, REalM is primarily a puzzler. And a tough one at that — which is why I fell in love with it. The puzzles don't utilize any gameplay mechanics for their solutions — it's just titillating word-based puzzle porn for your grey matter to enjoy. And me and my grey matter likey, we likey very much. Also, bonus points for some of the puzzles activating my masochist card. Having to actually put pen to paper and labour 4 hours on my answer made hearing that oh-so-sweet correct answer sound effect play so elating. Just úžasný. But best of all — the game has NG+ with new puzzles and new secrets to explore.

And I'm not joking about the time spent on a single puzzle. Many took me hours, but then others minutes. Occasionally I would put my hands up in defeat and go to another area and different puzzle only to solve that seemingly impossible-to-crack puzzle in seconds after returning later. From my 85h playtime, I would say maybe 5 hours were of actual gameplay, like platforming, walking, and interacting with the world of REalM. The rest was Iris standing still, with her little idle animation playing, while I shed very manly tears as I begged my IQ to stop sinking. So, if you aren't prepared to be confused and made to feel stupid, you might loathe your time with REalM and its puzzles.

But for me, each Eureka! was bliss. It felt incredibly satisfying due to how much time and effort went into overcoming the puzzle in front of me. REalM delivered what EA could not — a sense of pride and accomplishment.

Speaking of platforming, it is present throughout the game, indeed. The best compliment I can give it is passable. Essentially, you'll evade being licked, ticked, and pricked, hide from giant insects, and jump over earbugs, babies, and many other unholy creations birthed by TheAudio, the mind behind REalM. But they don't pose any real challenge. It was akin to a welcome respite after a painful workout my brain had just endured. And this lack of challenge may disappoint some. However, it did make it easy to ogle and ingest these outlandish creatures and many other disturbing sights REalM's ripe with at my own pace, worry-free.

There are also four unique abilities you'll unlock for Iris. Two, the dove and crow, or as I like to call it sexy goth lady power, impact gameplay. The dove gives you "wings" to reach higher places, and the crow returns you to the Nexus, which acts as a hub of sorts where you pick one of the three worlds to explore, each enveloped in a unique theme. The other two, Iron-Irsi and Prickle-Iris have zero impact on gameplay, literally.

And except the sexy goth lady power, all aid in opening previously closed paths, unearthing the many buried secrets REalM has. But the chances you miss a secret is nigh-on-impossible due to how in-your-face the secret "doors" are. Still, there were a couple of superb hidden surprises as a reward for fully exploring every nook and cranny — I'll give the game that much.

But secrets aren't the only incentive to explore, as you'll also come across mementos in the wild. Basically, these mementos act as tokens you use to get a second puzzle hint or sacrifice them for an instant solution to a particularly challenging puzzle.

To obtain, something of equal value must be lost.

Knight's bishop to queen five, checkmate, I hear you say, creaming from excitement, itching to abuse the memento system by saving scumming to get puzzle solutions for free. But pawn to king square five, king's knight to the third square on the bishop's file, queen takes F7 — now that's a checkmate, courtesy of Yoxter, the puzzle master, and the rest of the dev team. Or, in simpler terms — you can't abuse this system as the game doesn't show you the puzzle solution when using mementos to solve them.

Lastly, the audio and visuals sing in spectacular harmony, coming together like cream and pie, providing your senses with a mouthful they'll thoroughly enjoy. The game relishes furnishing you with disturbing hand-drawn imagery accompanied by the sweet cacophony of brass and piercing sounds. There is a certain level of elegance to its violation of mother nature and all these unholy marriages of deformed flesh, metal, insect, and leather roaming the game's world.

But just looking wasn't enough — I had to touch it, fully and thoroughly explore it. I just had to. My own bedlam urge drove me. And this I absolutely adored — I was the mason of my own dread. In the wise words of a ghostly whisper in a large cornfield, "If you build it, he will come." Did Kevin Costner come? Sadly, no. But the uneasiness from looking at the abyss longer than the WHO recommends sure did. And each first encounter would leave a long-lasting impression on me. Or was it 'scar me' that Dr. Bob said? Tomato, potato.

Gaze long into an abyss, and it smiles back

Penance

And rather than offer a quick summation of the game's strengths and weaknesses as a parting gift, I'll instead share a very discomfiting reality I was the sole architect of — I lied. Not in this review, as the game is superb, and I stand behind my recommendation and everything I said 100%. No, I lied to the good people at Quantum Sheep.The people who put their trust in me.

For context, REalM: Walk of Soul is the very first game sent to me by me initiating contact with the developers. People I didn't know probably read what I wrote and liked it enough to send me a code for their game. It meant a lot to me. But as I said, I lied to them. I promised a review would drop in January of last year for an event I wanted to do, but I didn't deliver on both fronts. I overestimated my own abilities and broke the promise given. There is a reason why that transpired, but that is of little importance. The uncomfortable truth is my own gluttony led to my downfall and the unintentional lie. But despite my shortcomings, I was only met with kindness and even welcomed to discuss my interpretation of the game directly with TheAudio.

So, REalM isn't just a game to me — it's a testament to my greatest failure. However, this is a queen-sized mess I made, with a second opprobrium on its way — Space Gladiator, the next game I'll review.

If you enjoy this review, come and read more wisdom from the Gospel of Sv. Prolivije.