Emuurom

Emuurom is a creature-collecting metroidbrainia about a retro paradise and its inhabitants. Exploration relies on using a special scanner beam to gather clues, trigger secrets, and gain knowledge. Backed by cute, creative pixel art and retro background music, the game will scratch the itch of players looking for a secret-fueled adventure.

Playing an explorer attempting to uncover the secrets of the lost world Emuulehto, you use a scanner beam in order to open up and traverse the realm. The first purpose of the scanner beam is to catalogue the titular Emuurom creatures you encounter. The registry of creatures is called the Emuudex, and it's shaped like an evolutionary tree of life. Scanning all available creatures of a certain type will unlock their hidden Emuudex entry, which can provide clues on how to proceed further in the game.

Scanning the creatures isn't simply an Emuudex matter though, since they also react to being scanned in interesting ways. For instance, Kaakana, one of the first creatures encountered in the game, will move along a set flight path when scanned. Like in Toki Tori 2, discovering and understanding the many different creature reactions is essential to navigating Emuulehto. Accessing hidden passages and unknown rooms is actually the most recurring challenge in the game; you'll have to look for suspicious environment details and apply your knowledge about the creatures in order to uncover these new paths.

Compared to Animal Well, a different metroidbrainia that relies on several power-ups to experiment with, Emuurom provides a sole scanner to uncover the game’s secrets. That being said, the scanner has a number of unexpected applications, like freezing creatures in place when they’re fully exposed to the scanner’s beam. It can also be used to read from stone plinths scattered throughout the world that provide lore about Emuulehto and its inhabitants.

In addition to its systemic exploration challenges, the game also invites some lateral thinking through written riddles that can help you find more secrets once correctly interpreted. There's even a cryptic in-game language you can choose to decipher to get additional clues for some of the most obscure mysteries, much like in Tunic. Emuurom boasts many layers of secrets, and it does not hold your hand as you probe for ways to explore its five biomes ever deeper.

This description was written by Hira and Oriane Tury.