Here's a truly under-the-radar indie puzzle game for you: just released this week, Éalú is a true stop-motion point-and-click adventure, each frame of the game painstakingly hand-rendered with physical materials (mostly wood).
You're guiding a mechanical mouse through a maze of rooms, clicking to investigate various scenes, objects and puzzle devices. What is the purpose of this place? Is the mouse trying to escape? How cryptic do these puzzles get? We won't know until we play, but we do know that the genre has never looked more lovingly crafted than this.
Other than the visual teasers we get in the trailer, details about the gameplay are relatively sparse, but the Steam page does mention that this is a pretty tight 2-5ish hour playthrough. I see mentions of a wordless story told through the environment that you'll uncover as you explore the labyrinth, and a suggestion that things might take a sinister turn.
Here are some features advertised on Éalú's Steam page:
- Guide a wooden, clockwork mouse from the maze’s center to its outer edges.
- Solve environmental puzzles, uncover clues, and have dangerous encounters.
- Eat cheese!
- Discover the secrets of the maze — and the story hidden beneath it.
The description also emphasizes the tiny development team (4 people) who made every piece of it by hand, from every frame-by-frame animation, to the soundtrack specifically composed for the game, to the illustrations and final assembled game.
Éalú is available now on Steam, with a 20% launch discount until October 9th.
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