At the end of 2021, Scarf was launched on PC, the first game from the Spanish developer Uprising Studios; a title heavily inspired by Journey or Rime; that relies on its minimalism to explore the story of a soul and its scarf.
A friendship of few words
scarf tells the story of Hyke, a hero who befriends a scarf in the shape of a dragon (or a dragon in the shape of a scarf?). Our mission is to recover some energy stolen by some rebellious souls that are hiding in various biomes. To access each of them, our scarf will transform into various special abilities that will allow us to access unreachable places on our own.
The game does not have dialogues, except from time to time a narrator gives some details of each area we visit; understanding a little more the central theme of the adventure.
Between skill and ingenuity
scarf is a 3D platform game, where there is no permanent death; although we do die if we fall into the water or into the void. Each biome introduces us to some puzzles. Most of them are not very complex, although it should be noted that without any help we will have to understand everything thanks to our ingenuity.
On the other hand, there are several platform areas, where we are going to jump with a kind of trampoline, swing with our scarf, glide or even move quickly along some steps that are breaking. For each jump and movement it is essential to realize that our protagonist is a featherweight and moves very lightly when he has the scarf on.
Finally there are certain moments of scarf that we are going to have to use a little ingenuity and a little control when moving through areas with an underwater sphere or a part of a lever to fix a broken mechanism.
Some collectible items cannot be missing for those who like to complete games 100%.
forgetting the stress
If we forget a bit that you have to pass challenges and complete puzzles; scarf is transformed is a beautiful fantasy story to feel everything that its colors and music emanate.
As usual in games where we go from one biome to another, the devs have achieved a perfect job in highlighting the color tones in desert areas, caves and places with lush vegetation.
The minimalism of its protagonist makes most of his expressions understood through his eyes (especially when he establishes “communication” with his scarf).
The music varies very little in the game, it is not great but its harmony accompanies the entire journey. And the main thing, it is not repetitive.
It is worth mentioning that I had some performance problems, frame drops or loading times that were a bit long. Nothing that can’t be fixed with a patch.
System Requirements
MINIMUM: Requires a 64-bit processor and operating system – OS: Windows 10 64bit – Processor: Intel Core i5 / AMD FX-6300 – Memory: 6GB RAM – Graphics: GTX 760 2GB/ Radeon R9 270X 2GB or better – DirectX: Version 11 – Storage: 12 GB available space – Sound card: DirectX compatible – Additional notes: These are preliminary system specs that can and will change!
RECOMMENDED: Requires a 64-bit processor and operating system – OS: Windows 10 64bit
Processor: Intel i7 / AMD Ryzen 7 – Memory: 8 GB RAM – Graphics: GTX 1070 4GB / Radeon RX 5700-XT 4GB or better – DirectX: Version 11 – Storage: 12 GB available space – Sound card: DirectX compatible – Additional Notes: These are preliminary system specs that can and will change!