Paper Trail, The Game on Achieving Dreams

Follow protagonist Paige and her journey through her paper world

Follow The Paper Trail

Step Into Paige’s Shoes In Her Journey To Find Herself

Origami or the art of paper folding has long been an art viewed in awe. Colorful pieces of paper in various prints and colors come and fold together into lovely works of art. Now, take paper-folding, and put it into a game. It’s not as intricate as origami is, but the visual experience is on par, and is an elaborate, and well-made manifestation of artistry.

Paper Trail is a puzzle-adventure game where you play as protagonist Paige who leaves her home and life in the seaside village of Southfold to attend university in a nearby city. As one of her village’s excelling students, she aims to be the first of her village to get into the institution. Determined to achieve her dreams of becoming an astrophysicist despite the disapproval of her parents, Paige runs away from the peaceful life in that quaint little village, armed with nothing but her, herself, and…her strange powers of bending the space-time continuum.

The game employs a uncommon type of puzzle where you fold (literally) and tear the world around Paige to unfold the hidden secrets and paths within, and to help her get around the map. Each area is like a piece of paper, with the map on both the front and back sides. But it’s not only about folding and unfolding the path—as Paige gets closer to the city, things like statues, boulders, laser beams, and moving platforms also become part of the puzzle, amping up the difficulty by a bit.

Where did this unique mechanic come from? “We were thinking of ways we could manipulate the world, and randomly, we tried folding the paper,” said CEO and game designer Henry Hoffman in an interview with The Guardian in 2023. The seamless merge of the front side and back side set off a lightbulb in their head. Why not make that into a puzzle?

They then spent the last three years perfecting the inner workings and the game in its entirety, resulting in a magical paper world with a unique gameplay mechanic, distinct art style that draws inspiration from printmaking and watercolor, and the unfolding of a personal story about fulfilling one’s dreams to the end.

Newfangled Studios, Brothers-in-Cr—er, Game Developing

Newfangled Games is an independent game development studio headquartered in Norwich, U.K. and headed by Henry and Frederick Hoffman, talented brothers who excel in game development and art, respectively. This isn’t Henry’s first stint with an award-winning game; he also worked on the puzzle game Hue, which won over 25 industry awards. Fredrick, on the other hand, mainly works as a digital illustrator and was introduced to the gaming industry by his brother. Claudie Mackula completes their trio as their music composer, boasting expertise with a ten year career in music.

Their official website reads, “Newfangled develops original IP with a focus on artistic, narrative-driven, emotionally engaging experiences,” values all found in Paper Trail. In the game, Paige develops the courage and strength needed to leave everything she had already known behind, to journey into the unknown and into a new life. According to the interview, it may be a shout out to what the developers also went through.

“My brother and I both relate to the themes around growing up in the rural town and needing to leave people behind to try and follow our dreams,” said Henry. Their shared experiences is what created the audio-visual masterpiece that is Paper Trail.

An Inspiring Game And A Tale Of Growth

In Paper Trail, you might not be necessarily saving the world, but you’re saving your—well, Paige’s—dreams and making it come true. The soft aesthetics combined with a chill and calming soundtrack is a wonderful experience; the game’s release date trailer gives you a short snippet of that, and what more with the actual game? The trailer also features a lot of other different characters that Paige meets on her journey, each with their own stories to tell. It makes the game feel more alive, with being able to meet fun and engaging characters.

Besides the numerous awards it has received since 2021, one of its most interesting critics is an editor from the British Origami Society, and Henry reports that they were very much impressed by it, even though he’s sure they committed some “origami faux pas”. A stamp of approval from the British Origami Society on what is essentially a paper-folding puzzle game is a distinction they should carry with pride.

Paper Trail is available to play on PC (Steam), Nintendo Switch, Xbox Series X|S, PlayStation 5, PlayStation 4, and on iOS and Android through Netflix Games.