Confusingly, these ghostly vignettes affect the tangible world through which your characters travel, perhaps opening a door or setting a fire. If that wasn’t enough of a parallel, the colours of the children’s clothes match the colour of your yarn characters. Even the story, told in brief, blurry moving images in the background of each level, features two children helping each other to avoid danger. You can even play the entire game alone, moving one character into position and then switching to the other to solve the puzzles, then combining them into one to get through the action sequences.īut this is clearly meant to be a two-player experience. Thankfully, one character can “hitch a ride”, jumping on the other’s back and becoming intertwined with them for however long the player wants. There are also challenges more easily navigated by just one character: time-sensitive segments that involve running from danger or jumping on platforms that disappear. But there’s an over-reliance on the yarn characters using each other as pivots to swing over gaps too large to jump across, which feels great but requires little thought. Some of these puzzles are inventive, and they’re often designed so both players get to take turns being the more active participant. Maybe one of you needs to hold an obstacle out of the other’s way, or loop around objects and provide a rope for the other to climb. In this game, navigation requires cooperation. They are attached to each other, and there’s much more freedom of movement – bigger jumps, more momentum. The second features similarly mundane but beautiful environments – from forests and streams to playgrounds and barns – but with two yarn characters that can be controlled by two players together. The first was a solitary adventure in which a curious little character made of yarn explored a world much larger than him, dragging everyday objects around so he could clamber on to them, and using the unravelled thread of his body to build bridges or swing from branches. This year, EA went one better, announcing and releasing an equally adorable sequel on the same day.īut despite appearances, Unravel Two is very different to its predecessor. T he first Unravel game was a welcome surprise back in 2015, when it was announced by a nervous man holding a handmade yarn toy alongside publisher EA’s more traditional menu of guns, cars, and (foot)balls.