SCARF: A lovely universe with an unexciting gameplay

Journey, Abzu and Flower. Those type of games, what they remind us? Beautiful art and sound design, breathtaking views and short, basic but fascinating experience. And here we are with Scarf. Scarf tries to be one of this type of games, but with some deficiency.

If you love to go on such an adventure on your streams, then you could try Scarf. This experience won’t be as fascinating as other this types of games but it could still work.

Wear your scarf and go on an adventure

Scarf is a 3D platformer puzzle game which offers to you and your audience a short and relaxing experience. Here, you will travel through some beautiful places and solve some puzzles during your adventure.

While you’re exploring Scarf’s world, you will also listen this Scarf’s story and understand the game’s universe. Who are these little blue creatures ? What happened to your Scarf ? The game tries to tell a story in which you can easily get in to it and be touched.

Although the story and storytelling is not as immersive as Journey or those type of games, in its own circle, Scarf does its job well. You can listen this little blue kid’s and Scarf’s story with your audience with pleasure.

And this story tries to keep you vigilant while you’re exploring the game via collectibles, because the game also tells its story with side objectives, such as old portraits, which shows some of the little blue creature’s life.

Everything looks bright but is it really fun?

We talked about Scarf’s story and storytelling firstly because this game’s main feature is its world. But also this is a 3D platformer puzzle game in the end and even though it does its job in a casual way, I don’t think it is enough to be fun.

These type of games generally don’t come up with extraordinary gameplay mechanics. They just want you to explore the world and listen what they’re trying to tell you. But Scarf offers to you a 3D platform puzzle game experience and it’s not that exciting, even in a casual way.

Scarf has some few classic parkour mechanics with superb easy platforming sequences. Of course, Scarf doesn’t try to present you the hardest or even a challenging experience, but with this gameplay, I think even a streamer will get bored. I’m not even saying that it is boring to watch.

Also, just like the platforming sequences, the puzzle sequences are too easy and boring too. You’re just moving some objects through the whole game. There’s no thinking at all. And that makes Scarf even more unbearable.

With easy puzzles, not only a streamer can lose their focus but also the audience would never care about what’s happening on their screens. That makes a stream hard to join.

The experience never expand or get exciting throughout the game. There could be only one exception to enjoy Scarf: if you and your audience really love superb chill gaming. If you consider Scarf as a chill gaming experience, than that could work for you.

Scarf is not completely what it tries to be

In addition to those problems, Scarf has 2 to 3 hours of gameplay. If you try to hunt some collectibles, then this could add some time to it. But when we look the overall experience, it is actually a little bit long compared to what the content offers you.

I played Scarf on PlayStation 4 and, unfortunately, the game really struggles on the console. Graphics look fine but frame rate issues and bugs makes this short experience even more hard to accept. Also there are lots of sound bugs too.

If you want to play Scarf, then I suggest you to play it on PC or next gen consoles. That would be better choice.

Anıl Keskinbaş

A gamer who loves to talk and analyze video games/game sector in his writings, videos and streams !