Naiad Review: Relaxing Game Sunk by Tedious Busywork

Naiad presents itself as a game about wild swimming, yet it fails to live up to its promise. The developer, HiWarp, and publisher, HiWarp, released it on December 10th, 2024, for Windows and MacOS via Steam. The price remains to be determined. The game was reviewed on an Intel i5-9400F with 16GB RAM and an Nvidia GTX 1660.

A Relaxing Game That Falls Short of Its Potential

Introduction to the Gameplay

You play as a water spirit named Naiad, introduced by a small talking cloud. The available verbs mainly revolve around swimming. You can push X to move like a frog and attract more frogs, or press A to swim underwater and bypass obstacles. Singing is another unique ability, where you hold B and adjust the pitch with the analogue stick.These abilities allow you to interact with the environment. For example, leading frogs to lilypads leads to a path of bubbles pointing to a secret tunnel. Reuniting lost ducklings with their parent earns you a thank-you message. However, these discoveries feel like shallow collectibles, as most areas have the same tasks.

The Shallow Interactions

The interactions between Naiad's elements are repetitive and lack depth. Your actions often have inconsistent consequences. Sometimes hitting flowers breaks a rock, and other times it makes a human emerge and flip a switch. This arbitrariness makes it difficult to solve puzzles and turns the game into busywork.Instead of thinking, you simply do the same things in every situation. This lack of clear direction and the absence of a checklist make you feel anxious, as if you might be missing something. It's not a relaxing experience at all.

The Beauty and Boredom

Naiad is visually stunning. The camera leaving the protagonist to show the environment creates beautiful frames of light-dappled water and breathing bushes. But it's like the stale beauty of a landscape painting in a business hotel bathroom.There's no emotional depth to match the beauty. The poetry in the game is lacking, and it leaves no space for feelings. In contrast, Anne Dillard's Pilgrim At Tinker Creek describes nature with poetic detail and finds a way to talk about feelings that Naiad fails to do.

Human Interactions and Morality

When humans appear in the game, they cut down trees and pollute the world. As Naiad, you can sing to distract them, but there's not much you can actually do to stop them. This moralising feels smug and cloying, like a storybook for children.There are existing works that explore nature themes better. Tove Jansson's Moomin books understand the cycle of nature and its hardships. Naiad doesn't offer anything new or profound in this regard.

Comparison to Other Games

Naiad is compared to other similar games like Abzu. While Abzu was a simple, joyful game about exploring an underwater world, Naiad falls short. It's like an easy listening cover of a song that just makes you feel like you're on hold.In a world full of more explicit games, Naiad doesn't stand out. It has the potential to be a relaxing game, but it fails to deliver. It's both too much and not enough at the same time.