Toem is a nice indie game and the first outing from developer Something We Made. Gorgeous art style and a great soundtrack accompany you on the pilgrimage to the top of Mount Kierberg to see the Toem for yourself. It’s a trip your grandmother took years ago, and she’s excited to see you on your adventure.
It even gives you a camera that you’ll use to solve puzzles and gain passage to the next area of the Scandinavian-inspired world. Along the way, you’ll meet many interesting characters, solve their problems, and generally leave things a little better than when you found them. Useful adventure and amateur photography are the order of the day, but that doesn’t always make sense.
7 roaming around
Traveling in Toem is simple and straightforward. You do good deeds, help a cheerful group of strange characters solve their problems, and you get a stamp on your community card. Get enough stamps, and you’ll be able to travel for free to the next region and any other region you’ve already unlocked.
While great for your hero, who only starts with a camera and a pair of tampons, it may not be great for a public transit system. Does everyone get free rides for good deeds? Why wouldn’t citizens benefit from this more if they did?
6 round and round
The transportation problem in the world of Toem goes beyond the mystery of how it got its funding. The buses themselves defy interpretation. Logically, if you travel from a forest village to an island community, you can take a bus from the city until you reach the water crossing method. It could be a bridge, a ferry, a boat – anything.
However, the residents of Toem have a bus whose utility matches that of the Magnificent Century. It does it all – it drives on country roads, city streets, over water, and it will make its way through snow. Now, it’s possible that the bus trips watched aren’t non-stop and that you’re switching buses off-screen, but that only adds to the puzzle of who’s funding Toem’s transportation department.
5 shutter bugs
The camera is a wonderful device and it is everywhere today, on street corners, on our doorbells, on computers, and in the bag or pocket of almost everyone over the age of 12. It makes you wonder why there are more people in the areas you visit. Don’t own them, especially given their usefulness.
The only people in the world of Toem who seem to have cameras are in the Photo Challenger Guild. At least two members per area you visit, and not one of them even lifts a finger to help those around them. There are no free bus rides for them.
4 The real bastards
Seagulls don’t have the best reputation, and this game doesn’t help improve it. These shorebirds are notorious for their tricks of stealing food. They are opportunists and would take advantage of any advantage to get into the unprotected grub, but the Stanhamn seagulls take it to the next level.
You see them shortly after they reach the coastal village, ruthlessly attacking the local barges. He doesn’t even have any food! You will also find them blocking your path, preventing you from accessing some vital areas. Fortunately, their period of nuisance doesn’t last long because you get the Great Horn – the only thing these feathered demons fear!
3 Bring the plague
Logcity has a problem. It’s dirty. There are workers everywhere surrounded by huge piles of dirt and debris. There is no gap to be seen, despite their dubious claim that they spend all day digging them. Spray cans of paint scattered near the walls bearing the signs of graffiti. The city clearly does not have enough trash cans and accessible waste dumps to deal with the waste. But the biggest culprit is the bakery. When you first visited, mice were running everywhere.
Using your trusty horn, you can get rid of these adorable insects, and as a bonus, the baker rewards you with a cinnamon bun. There are customers in the bakery, you’ll have to visit again, which just means that the citizens of Log City either have a short memory or are enjoying one spot in town that was recently cleaned up.
2 on the podium
High fashion, like art, can be subjective. You don’t see a lot of people wearing clothes that come straight from the runway. Because they tend to be weird. However, at Logcity, the runway dictates fashion for the masses. It doesn’t take much either.
Simply put on your cheery angled paper hat and the fashionista on show will go crazy. Every poor soul, weary at work, and underpaid in the city will be wearing your latest fashion just minutes away. Which, to be clear, could just be a paper hat. Strange high fashion.
1 beep beep
Humble trumpet. In real life, the trumpet serves quite a few practical uses anymore. Unless you live on a fog-prone coast or visit a big city full of taxis, you’re not likely to hear one very often. As Toem’s lead photographer, you know that restricting such a useful tool to fog and traffic jams is a farce that needs to be corrected.
Gifted by a lighthouse keeper who will probably never need to use it again, you will continue on your adventure, making use of this priceless item. Banned by seagulls? trumpet. Sleeping pirates? trumpet. A guy armed with tape stuck in a snowman? trumpet. A huge block of ice the size of a house? You guessed it, horn.
