Sometimes, a game comes my way that I’ve never heard about, and it really blows me away with how beautifully unique it is. Today, I’m reviewing Paper Trail from developer and publisher Newfangled Games.

“Paper Trail is a top-down puzzle adventure about leaving home, set in a foldable, paper world. You play as Paige, a budding academic, leaving home for the first time to pursue her studies. On the journey, you learn to fold the world, merging two sides to solve puzzles, explore new areas and uncover long-lost secrets.”

That trailer and marketing blurb is really all you need to get you up to speed with this one. Paper Tail is a very clever and wonderfully realised puzzle game with a very interesting gameplay mechanic. If you try to imagine the play area as a piece of paper with two sides, you have to traverse the game world by folding the paper, revealing the other side, to solve puzzles and guide Paige (you) from one screen to the next. As you progress through the game, the puzzles become increasingly more tricky to solve and throw in elements that you will need to combine with the paper folding to make your way through.

You’ll soon be contending with moveable platforms, domino-like tiles that need matching, rotating floors, pushable boulders and more. The puzzles are expertly crafted and while it is easy to get stuck, the solution is only ever a fold or two away. The controls are simple enough to get to grips with and a little bit twin-stick-like. You can move Paige around the play area with the left stick, and the right stick controls the cursor that you move to select which part of the paper that you want to fold. Hold down the trigger button to grab and fold away. Experimenting with the paper folding is the way forward and most puzzles will have you making multiple folds and sometimes, to multiple pieces of paper at the same time.

The core gameplay of having to get Paige from one end of the screen to the other is as simple as it can be. But, the obstacles and challenges that you’ll face are a joy to experience, and they really make this such a taxing but enjoyable gaming experience. If you do ever get stuck on a puzzle, then the game comes with two very handy help options that you can turn to. You can hold down a button and see the other side of the paper. This allows you to see any possible paths, and it works as a slight hint, but without ruining anything because you still need to think of how the image on the other side will change when you do fold the paper. It’ll be backwards if you fold it one way, upside-down if you fold it another, or even angled if you fold a corner.

The other hint system gives much more away, but still leaves you to work out the finer details. You can bring up a screen that will take you through a step-by-step guide of exactly how you need to fold the paper to progress. However, it doesn’t detail where Paige needs to be standing or move to, nor does it tell you how to manipulate the various elements on the screen to solve the puzzles. It just tells you which part of the paper to fold and when. While you do get a huge dose of help with this, you’ll still need to use the old grey matter to make the puzzles make sense.

Paper Trail is priced at around £15 and available right now on… well everything, even Netflix. I absolutely adore this game. It is simple, and still devilishly tricky. You’ll get stuck, but the handy hint systems are there to use if you so wish. It’s both calming and maddening. There’s no real violence, not boss fights… but each area ends in a major paper-folding, puzzle-solving enjoyable finale. The story is well told with a great narrative and the graphics are simple, but quite striking. Paper Trail really surprised me and pulled me into its gameplay loop like no other game has recently. Most definitely one of my favourites of the year so far, as it offers up a very unique puzzle gaming experience.