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Toem describes itself very aptly as a “photo adventure”. All the trappings of a Zelda-like adventure are there: exploring semi-self-contained areas, fulfilling random little fetch quests, and an end goal you can easily lose sight of while you pursue 100% completion. The one thing absent is combat, and it’s been replaced perfectly with a camera. All the quests are completed by snapping the right photos. It reminds me, oddly enough, of Forest’s Secret, although this game has other environments besides the natural landscape of the first full area. It also has a musical score, and you carry a radio on which you can play different tracks as you unlock them. Overall, the random items you collect (you have an entire tab devoted to apparel!) in your backpack, coupled with the hustle to get free bus rides makes the whole thing feel rather like a gap year backpacking adventure.
I keep thinking that I wish it were longer, but that’s really just my yearning for travel speaking and less to do with the game itself. It’s a perfect encapsulation of all the best parts of youthful adventure and discovery. There are some areas where I think the game could improve, mostly in providing guidance for the player and in improved accessibility. While there’s sound, screen shake, and brightness controls, gamepad controls are not natively rebindable - you’ll have to use Steam’s remapping for that. It’s still fundamentally playable one handed either on mouse or on gamepad, you just have to slow down a bit for the latter. One thing I’d wished I’d known long before it is actually part of a quest is that you can caption your photographs, more firmly placing the photography here as instant film (aka Polaroid), even if the camera resembles an old 35mm. Overall, it’s an extraordinarily polished debut from a small team. I can’t wait to see what they do next, and TOEM has gone to the top of my “replay” list once my back log is more under control.