Murasaki baby

Baby’s lost her mummy. rather than wail about it, she climbs out of her crib, grabs her favourite balloon, clutches your finger and sets off through four hand-drawn nightmarish worlds to find her again. Her journey’s only short,1 but it’s a memorable one filled with twisted lullabies, weird creatures and some mildly interesting puzzles that fall just short of challenging.

your role as Baby’s guide comprises two key inputs. using the touchscreen, you guide and protect Baby: taking her hand to pull her onwards 2 while moving objects to light the way ahead or stab at enemies who want to steal or pop Baby’s balloon, which signifies her health. in some situations you need to control the balloon itself and steer it past spikes or use it to anchor Baby when strong winds threaten to blow her away.

your second role involves stroking the rear touchpad to change the scenery. Each background affects the world in a different way: tap the rear touchpad when it’s blue and the world (and its lakes) will freeze; tap when black and Baby’s balloon turns to stone; twist the PS vita upside down when purple and you’ll walk on the ceiling and so on. occasionally the mixture of these mechanics gives rise to some clever conundrums, such as making tightrope elastic brittle with cold before smashing it
with a falling rock balloon, but a lot of the time the way forward’s pretty obvious.

it’s unquestionably beautiful, and the four mournful souls i meet along the journey (plus a brief aside in a demented pram) bring smiles to my face. But Murasaki’s puzzling side is a letdown. this Baby could have done with more time in the dev womb.