Flutter Away Review

Have you ever had one of those moments where you realise that your life is missing something that will surely make you happy? I had one of those moments playing Flutter Away; it made me realise that I need a capybara in my life. I know it’s the largest rodent on the planet, but damn, it’s cute! Developer Runaway sends you on an incredibly short journey in Flutter Away — that only lasts a couple hours — that takes you to the Amazon rainforest, where you play as a young city girl doing research on butterflies, plants, and other exotic life you find living there. Her trip is only five days long, so each day has a checklist of tasks to complete before she leaves.

Our researcher has brought her journal to log all the different species of fauna, insects, and wildlife that she encounters and to record all the things she has experienced during her time in the rainforest. Additionally, she has brought her camera with her to take photos, adding them to her book alongside the notes she has written down about each type and their traits. I especially love the watercolour drawings that appear alongside these entries; they add a personal handmade feeling that is rare in modern games. To log a butterfly in the journal, you need to fulfil a couple of tasks. First, you need a photo of it so that you can identify the breed/type. Once the photo is done, you have to poke the insect with a stick. This sounds ridiculous, but the butterfly/moth will land on your “perch” that you can rotate to get a good close-up view. This will help the researcher complete the descriptive logs that she jots down in her book. Each day, you will need to discover three different species of flying insects, like  butterflies and moths but some species only appear during the day, while others only come out once the sun has set. 

Flutter Away uses sunbeams to help you locate these new mystery species. Sometimes they will appear there, while other times, you will need to move leaves and rustle bushes to expose their hiding spots. The checklist of things you need to complete is divided into morning and nighttime. Some of these tasks have you taking photos of a certain colour of a flower, capturing photos of the stars, or setting up your camp and relaxing. My favourite tasks, by far, occur once you observe the capybara that lives somewhere near your campsite. Sometimes you just need to take photos and follow them through the jungle paths, then once the fluffy rodent named CapyBarbara gets more comfortable with your presence, you can feed it and even pet it! This was so amazing, especially when it starts to make a purring sound and follow you around.

This is one of the most chill and relaxing games that I have played in a long time. The hardest task assigned to you is trying to figure out how much you have to move fallen trees that are obscuring paths. It took me a few attempts to trigger the game to say that I have successfully move the trunk so I could advance on to the next job. Other than that, the game is quite simple; walk around the forest checking out all the cool different species that call the rainforest home to complete your journal before you need to leave. At the end of the day, when you go back to your tent to sleep, you will be asked to pick which photo you took that day is your favourite. This was a fun way to remember the cool things you had encountered; mine may have been a ton of capybara pictures…

Completing Flutter Away only takes a couple of hours, but it provides a whole experience that you don’t get from many games. The bright 3D visuals are nice, not high definition or anything like that. There are a few issues with clipping between objects, like the capybara and vegetation cutting into each other, but that didn’t take away from the experience at all. The music is tranquil and calming and works very well when the sounds of the jungle are overlaid on top of it. There are only a few actions that you need to perform besides walking around and each is assigned to a different D-Pad direction, so it is easy to swap between taking photos, reading the journal, or using your perch stick. Though, don’t get too snap-crazy with your pictures because, at some point, you will need to go purge some if you hit the photo limit. 

Flutter Away is a short but incredibly sweet title that I recommend to anyone. I was just really getting into it and I was sad to see that it was over. It’s one of those games that makes you feel good and provides a relaxing experience that you don’t get to feel very often. There were a few control issues, especially with moving tree trunks, that you will have to play around with to get it to work properly, but besides this, the game is simple to play. If you love to explore, enjoy flying insects like butterflies, and want to interact with a sweet capybara, you NEED to check out this game. I will surely go back to the title when I need some stress relief or just want to get in some sweet capybara cuddles!