A man leans with all his might against a giant black sphere planted in the center of his living room, but it won't budge. A woman stands on a shore, gazing at an ominous black orb rising out of a white sea. They feel connected, somehow, by this shared presence, and the way it looms inescapably in their lives.
Enigmatic images persist in WEAVE, "a short game about an abstract journey of two characters, who are both trying to cope with a shared event from the past in different ways," writes creator Nadav Tenenbaum in the description of the game. There are no words, no text—just a series of interludes and puzzles that cut back and forth between two characters, a man and a woman.
The mysterious "shared event" lingers in the colors and shapes that reverberate between the experiences of the two characters and the abstract, dreamlike quality of the images that connect them; it's not clear exactly what is happening, at least in tangible terms, or exactly what you're trying to accomplish.
Sometimes, you simply have to take the next step—to open the door, to push the hand of the clock—and other times you're presented with a puzzle to solve, though you have no way of knowing what it's supposed to unlock. There's a sense of forward momentum, but also hesitance and confusion. Was there a trauma, a loss? Are they trying to move towards each other or away from each other?
At one point, the man approaches a desk in a red room, where a massive, shadowy figure waits for him to write his name on a piece of paper. What does it mean to the sign the document? What you are getting yourself into? You have no way of knowing, but you pick up the pen anyway. Perhaps this is what coping looks like, sometimes: moving forwards even if you have no idea what you are moving towards.
You can play WEAVE in your browser now, or download it for PC for whatever price you choose.
