Escape Rooms can be a fun time in trying to look for clues to escape the room that you are in. It’s a simple concept and depending on the type of scenario, can be a puzzling and unforgiven one where you will know who your true friends are or possibly never want to speak again. But in order to escape, one might have to know their surroundings well enough and put together the clues to have the chance of that escape. But does Developers Stitch Media and Silverstring Media show us how to escape the room that we are bound in? Let’s find out with Flow Weaver for PCVR and Oculus Quest/Quest 2.
Flow Weaver is a narrative escape room game where you play as a Flow Weaver who can move between dimensions or Flows and learn new spells as you try to uncover the secrets of this world that you are in as you learn how each flow affects the world in different ways as you try and escape what you are bound to. But be Being that Flow Weaver is a seated experience, you will not be moving, there is no locomotion fore we begin, this is a seated experience. There is not standing, just sitting and the game will let you know if you are not standing. So make sure you have your favorite chair or place to sit and let’s continue.
When you first start Flow Weaver, you learn that you are a student that they should get ready for their final test. However, as you pull these dimensions apart, you can then enter that dimension. But in order to move, you will have to interact with your Planter Compass, which think of it as your hub between the material world and other dimensions or flows. You simply press the X or A buttons to pulls up your compass. To enter a dimension or flow, you grab it and pull it towards you and will enter each one in a locked seated position.
Between the Material World and each Flow, you can take certain objects back with you to help solve the puzzles that can alter the Flow you were just in. So there will be times where you may have to go back and forth just to be able to solve the puzzle so you can find the Rune Stones that help progress the story. Some of the puzzles will have you think and some might stump you, but don’t give up. With each new Flow, is a new spell or ability you learned. For example, in the second Flow, the Shadow Realm, you will learn the Shadow Hand, which allows you to pick things up and is quite useful since you are sitting around the entire time. Not to say there will not be instances that you will not use your hands to interact, but the Shadow Hand will be your friend most of the time.
There will be times when you get stuck and luckily the Developers added the meditation feature that allows time to sort of slow down and allow you to concentrate to see what part of the Flow that you are in can be interacted with. This is done by pressing the Y and B buttons. When you get to the Flow with the Fairies, you will learn Communication which can be used with communicating with animals and fireflies (which I will come back to this in a minute). Later on in the game, as more Flows (dimensions) become available, it’s not a matter of traveling from one to the other. You have to go back to the Material World and then travel to the Flow you want to go to. As you also progress, you can gain access to new audio clues that help feel in the gaps as to why you are here as well as the secrets to this world. I think my favorite Flow was Skybridge. There is just something beautiful about this place in VR. Maybe it is the change of scenery up in the clouds as the sun is trying to come through the clouds
Looking at the graphics they are sharp and clear on both the Oculus Rift S and Oculus Quest 2. Seeing the ghost of the Shadow Realm at night with the light hitting the clouds just right does look very nice. The sound and audio with your character doing a majority of the talking (which you can now skip if you need to by pressing the left stick in thanks to the recent update) have some emotion with the right amount of sarcasm which is always a nice touch when you are in an escape room trying to escape.
Let’s talk about some of the challenges I came across. For one, I started out trying to review this game on the Oculus Quest 2. The game looked fantastic, however, the Developers disabled any casting on the Oculus Quest. Not sure why, but if you are one wanting to cast your gameplay so others can watch and see what you are seeing, you cannot do that per se with the Oculus Quest. You can, however, record the gameplay footage onto the Quest itself, then in order to transfer the gameplay, you have to get a USB C cable and connect it to your computer which again, not sure why, but that’s how it is. Also, any time that I raised my headset or took it off to drink some water, it’s like my progress was gone. That communication spell I just learned how to do, gone.
So thankfully, Flow Weaver is cross-buy with the Oculus Rift/Rift S. This allowed me to record the gameplay footage without a problem. When I removed my Rift S headset, my progress was still there, so that’s fixed. There was an issue with the part of the game where you need to bring Faeries a bottle of wine that it was a little troubling to give the wine to them, but the Developers have since updated the game and I am happy to say that some of the issues have been addressed. Somethings that still need to be addressed are some times you might drop something like a gear or the Purple Bauble which if that happens it’s gone and I had to close out the game and start it up again and the items were there. This is not to say you may experience the same thing as I didn’t experience some of the things others did. The Developers are aware and are getting the game updated which I am glad they are aware of certain challenges others are facing and working on it to make it the best experience possible. And if you like Escape Room games with fun puzzles, some magic, and narration, then Flow Weaver may just be for you.
Flow Weaver is out now on the Oculus Quest/Quest 2 and Oculus Rift/Rift S on the Oculus Store and Steam. A review code was provided.
To learn more about the game, please visit the site, like them on Facebook, follow them on Twitter, follow them on Twitch, follow them on Instagram, join their Discord, and subscribe to their YouTube channel.
To learn more about Stitch Media, please visit their site, like them on Facebook, and follow them on Twitter. To learn more about Silverstring Media, please visit their site, like them on Facebook, follow them on Twitter, and subscribe to their YouTube channel.
Also, check out the Flow Weaver interview.
In case you missed the trailer, please enjoy. Until next time, I am going to escape back into VR.