Areia: Pathway to Dawn

Overview Areia: Pathway To Dawn is an exploration game with puzzle elements, set in a surreal and abstract environment heavily influenced by Indian folklore, while also Buddhist and Induist mythology references. Players impersonate an abstract character without a clear objective to follow except getting at the end of each scenario, either through classic platforming, puzzles, or the use of various creation powers to shape terrain. On the good side, this title has a definitely unique art style, though not entirely original as idea, as it's clearly inspired to Journey as far as style is concerned. Beautiful vistas and otherworldly scenarios are regular while playing Areia, even without a high level of detail, the game definitely manages to impress visually. The indirect narration story, is purposefully vague and every player will interpret it differently, which is one of the main points

»Pain gently dissolves as peace solidifies No time is lost when joy stands nearby« TL;DR Areia: Pathway to Dawn is a visually stunning journey through the different stages of enlightenment that intends to evoke a range of (mostly positive) emotions. It uses very simplistic story-telling and gameplay, coupled with one of the most gorgeous art-styles I know and heavy inspiration from both Buddhism and Hinduism and therefore has a huge spiritual undertone. It also takes a lot of cues from what made the PSN exclusive game Journey as massively successful as it was and manages to feel like a spiritual successor to that masterpiece in many ways, establishing itself as one of the few existing games in the "Journey-like" subgenre. I wouldn't say it's quite as good as Journey but it's pretty damn close. Lock the room, turn off your phone and play with headphones on to lock out the stress and hec

Follow our curator page: IndieGems if you like and want to see more reviews like this one. Areia: Pathway to Dawn is an allegorical adventure that is clearly influenced by Journey with some platforming and some puzzles/pathways. There is clearly more to this game if you understand the background context of the game, but this is not necessary to play in any way. The game is fairly short and would take somewhere around 3 hours to complete. I did some backtracking and had some other unexpected time delays and still finished right around the 4-hour mark. It's an explosion of colors calmed by serene musical tones. The meditative atmosphere is preserved throughout the game. Take from the game whatever you get out of it, and I have a feeling that everyone would get a different feel by the nature that it's completely open to interpretation, especially if you are an ignorant of the context, as I

Areia: Pathway to Dawn A relaxing, immersive, slightly perplexing journey, through a beautiful landscape sprinkled with light platforming and puzzles. First Impressions First, I want to say that this is more than a walking simulator. Although it contains many attributes associated with these types of games there are enough extra elements to class this as a platformer and/or puzzler. Although not good enough to stand out as an example of a good platformer or puzzler they are welcome additions to the walking simulator genre. Areia is more of an experience than a serious puzzle or platform game. The game is incredibly immersive, especially with headphones, and the soundtrack is amazing. Full of relaxing chimes, sitar and Indian influences, you’d be forgiven to think that you’d just stepped into a meditation class by accident. The gameplay is rather simple, but everything is done to

This is a beautiful light platformer with a touch of a walking simulator. A relaxing and immersive game with a heavy spiritual overtone to it with Hinduistic and Buddhist influences. It reminded me of Ancient Knowledge and other reviewers have mentioned Journey which is on my wishlist. This is not a walk in the park as you have to work your way through different environments and challenges on your way to enlightenment. That sounds really heavy, but the game is quite light and enjoyable. Music is lovely with Indian overtones to it, but it did wear thin after a while. I only got half of the achievements despite going back in to hunt for them. Dunno where they were?! If you're looking for something unusual...this is it. Highly recommend. 8/10

Areia: Pathway to Dawn Areia is a 2,5-3 hours long adventure with a relaxing gameplay. It looks like a walking simulator but actually it's much closer to a very easy to play puzzle-platformer. Game tells a story about samsara wheel of life - you may read what it is before playing to better understand what's happening (there's a decent amount of symbolism + don't expect any in-game explanations) Game looked very linear and straightforward until very last level but apparently there's more to discover - I unlocked only 4/12 achievements during my first playthrough (I intentionally skipped at least one area in last zone). The majority of playtime you do simple platforming with some easy puzzle-ish elements. Music is nice and fits really well but gets a bit repetitive over time. Level design is good - you always know where to go and what to do + you don't suffer from any technical flaws.