Tried out AER Memories of Old. The tutorial is very gentle right up until the first time you jump off a cliff and turn into a bird. It tells you to use space to flap, but as hard as I flapped I always nosedived.

Eventually I turned to the web and found out the reason: the aerial controls are completely different from the land controls. I assumed that, as on land, W would move you forward and space would move you up. This also seemed reasonable given past games from Joust through Flappy Bird. It turns out that, in the air, W and S point your nose down and up, while flapping propels you forward.

With this understanding, the game is not too stressful (so far). The low-poly graphics are appealing, including various birds you encounter on the floating islands.

My next question was whether there was some kind of quest journal. The answer from the Steam forum:

"It's a walking simulator. Walk / fly around and explore the world. You'll see, what you have to do. Otherwise in your hometown (-island) are some people. Talk to them, maybe they know, what to do."

Open world sandboxes aren't really my jam, but I'll give it a few more sessions to see if it grabs me.

#gaming #AER