Demi and the Fractured Dream [Preview]: Wearing our hearts on our sleeve

Hands on with the latest from Yarn Owl Studios on Nintendo Switch 2

I only had twenty minutes with Yarn Owl’s latest game, Demi and the Fractured Dream, but I could tell where it was drawing its inspiration from within the first. The game wears its love of action adventures like the Ocarina of Time and 3D puzzlers like Portal 2 like a Beatles t-shirt on tribute band’s singer, happy to belt out “I wanna hold your hand, as we take on the mid-boss.” It indulges in the very best of those styles while adding some slight twists of its own, hoping to entice the fans to make the trek over to their world too.

Demi revels in familiarity, with our demo taking place in a sort of temple that genre fans will come to expect of these games. Though this area is intentionally claustrophobic, the game will be filled with a large world, towns, people and more. One of the first things we learn is to battle enemies, which consists of locking on and swinging our sword or trying to roll away at the right time to avoid an attack. The battles are swift, and rely more on our understanding of patterns than pure power moves.

Once we clear out the enemies we start looking for a way into the next room, but with a giant pit below us we might be out of luck. That’s where the puzzle-solving comes in, which is a big part of the game’s core. In this particular section we can swipe at a giant crystal to materialize platforms, making our way across the pit to the other side until we see a giant wooden door blocking our way. How do we clear that out? We need to hit the crystal from a distance so that door clears out, but we can’t reach that crystal just yet. In another area we need to get across a lake, which requires learning to use a giant feather to blast us across with wind. That teaches us to use the feather, which we can use to move a crate to make our way to a platform, which then gives us access to a device shooting out an orb. With that feather we can blast the orb as it comes towards us, redirecting it towards the crystal to clear the door.

As we come across a boss fight we need to learn the beast’s movements and patterns. It’s almost rhythm-based, in a way, as we need to remember to tap this button to block, then roll right, then block, then roll left, then jump jump jump over energy waves, then roll forward and attack. Then we do it again, but maybe in reverse. Pattern recognition.

Demi doesn’t outright tell us what to do in these situations, instead giving us tools and abilities so that we can hopefully piece them together on our own. I guess in a way it’s like that tribute band but it’s also not, because it doesn’t want actually to hold your hand, it just wants you to know that the hand is attached to an arm with a very familiar heart tattoo on it.

Demi and the Fractured Dream arrives in February 2027.