NEAVE

NEAVE reminds me a lot of the game Refunct which came out five years earlier and has the exact movement except its a bit smoother. Another great atmospheric parkour style runner game with the goal of getting the shortest time possible. There is only one achievement and it is to complete the game. Rate 5/10 based on length and game play.

The dev was inspired by Refunct and I think it shows in a lot of ways. Some could argue to it's detriment.

Gameplay: It's very similar to Refunct except you're collecting the cubes as the main thing to change the world instead of pressing buttons and coloring the world as you go.
Neave also does something different in that you're not slowly bringing up the world around you. You're changing it as you collect the cubes and is also different in the fact that you finish and are done you can't explore a completed world like in Refunct.
Controls: Refunct has really tight controls and feels very responsive in how you can string things together. Neave does not and feels very floaty and too snappy. I was forced into wall runs into walls I wasn't aiming for when I wasn't that close to them. They're fine enough I'd say but they could use a bit tweaking if there's any plans for a sequel
Music: I really like the music. I like Refunct's better overall but the music in this was pretty good.
World: Talking about the world feels a bit important since I brought it up earlier. It feels pretty barren because they're just basic blocks with there only being like two different colors. Refunct got around this issue by having your color the blocks in making them look like land and also having elevators and bounce pads to change movement even a tiny bit. Neave's world changes but it doesn't feel as satisfying or as organic.
Would be really hard to give this a score out of 10 and while I may have ragged on the game throughout this review I think the most important thing to take away is that Neave was still fun to play. I look forward to any more games from you Patrick. Good job.

Much life another game called Refunct, Neave is a chill first-person platformer where you the player must parkour your way around a range of different platforming challenges to collect a number of cubes to complete the game. Neave can be finished in under an hour and If you liked Refunct, then you'll probably enjoy Neave.

At first I thought each playthrough and restructuring of the environment would be different, hence the description "atmospheric", but then I saw the leaderboards.
The game works both ways, but to be really atmospheric, it would need a real "chill" soundtrack. Some classical pieces are imitated, why not play the real ones? As for the speedrunning, you hear footsteps, but do not see your "character". So precise jumping only comes with playtime.
The best element being the simple and artificial style -no stupid buttons or colours- one could have made a consistent game by making the character soundless and keeping it a "camera" only. Noticeable things would then be the sunlight and the watersound, a good contrast to the design.
But it costs almost nothing in the sale and poses a little challenge to finish it, so, not that bad.

pros and cons of this compared to refunct
pros:
the level opens up in a way that presents multiple targets and you can choose to aim for. the more i played the more i liked this.
its short and cheap
cons:
wallrun - wallruns are awkward, i think you have to be facing the wall to hold on, makes it easy to fall off
walljump - if you're facing into the wall you end up jumping parallel to the wall, rather than away at the angle you're facing, which combined with having to face into the wall to stay on, makes wall jumping incredibly awkward and unsatisfying
low air control - if you accidentally jump too much in one direction, you can't correct at all, which is annoying.
no coyote time - easy to just fall off blocks.
fix those 4 cons and the game will be good
further harder to address cons:
dull level design - almost every route is just a climb up a staircase of blocks. i believe this is partially to do with how bad the rest of the platforming mechanics are.
uninspired graphics

For the asked price, this is a decent very short relaxing first person platformer best comparable to Refunct even though Refunct is way better. But it's still worth it.

At first I thought this was gonna be a simple Refunct cut/paste with different graphics. And I mean well, it's *quite* similar, but not really the same, to my surprise. Found myself having quite some fun with this tbh.
Only gripe I have with this is that Shift is crouch, and crouching is actually useless in this game. Wish it was a run instead tbh, but whatever.
Might actually try to seriously route this at some point for speedruns, who knows.