The Last Campfire


Game'scover

About the Game

The Last Campfire is a puzzle adventure game developed by an Indie studio called Hello games. The studio first debuted in the gaming industry with their series Joe Danger which was released for all the third Gen consoles in 2010. Joe Danger had three different video games released but in 2016 the studio release their most known project, No Man's Sky a game whose title is much more popular for both good and bad reasons. For a brief reference No man's sky was a game which fell victim to the Media as they overhyped it based on it's shown potential. Upon release many of the key features were missing from the game which lead to it becomming a major dissapointment and had Hello games reputation filled with negative critisism. Needless to say, the studio never gave up on their promise to deliver a fantastic game and up until now (Feb 2022) the game received plenty of patches that brought the majority of the mechanics promised and even more. Since that incident, the team kept a low profile and try their best not to overhype their projects as they once again might lose control of what is being told.

The Last campfire as of now is their third Original IP which was met with possitive critisisms. The game was developed by Hello Games themselves and more specifically by a team of only three employess as the rest according to them were working on No man's sky. In August 2020 the game was published by themselves and it was onl available in the online stores of each console. As mentioned the game was met with possitive critisism and both Journalists and gamers enjoyed it.

World of The Last Campfire

Game screenshot
The world of the last Campfire is very mysterious. The game introduces the players to weird soul creatures that re called Forlons. There is a strange world were Forlons who lose their way, goal or purpose go and hardly made it out.
One day the player's hero Embrer, a blue Forlon lost it's way and found it self in this weird world. Ember wakes up in a dark cave, and feeling scared he tries to escape just to find itself outside in big dark forest. On it's way Ember
helps a fire spirit to return to it's owner which lead Ember in a "lost" Forlon. With the return of hope, the campfire lightened and a ghost appeared that explain Ember that this place is where the Lost gathered and he is here to help them
guide them find their way. He also asked Ember to find and free as many lost Forlons as it can. The ghost it self cannot help them if they re stoned but it can keep them safe once awaken.

There are three different campfires across the land and this means that Ember will have to help a total of three Ghost to gather their forloms to proceed into a new area. The second land, not only introduces the Ember to another ghost guide
but also the forest king also knonw as the King Bird. The king offers people shelter with the exchange that the Forlons won't go around searching for hope and dreams. He believes in the idea that the forloms who do not have a goal
won't lose their self nor will they get hurt physically and emotionally. The king also offers his land as a place for Forloms to stay and leave peacefully not knowing or shown caring about whether or not the people under his shelter
are happy. He also tries to pose a threat to Ember who doesnt seem to agree with the kings idealogy and refuses not to do something when the ghost warned it not to lose it's own self.

Ember whose name resembles a small piece of fire, resembles the hope and tries to show all of the inhabitant of this world that despite what happened or what may happen no one should stay neutral and lose their self. Instead they should pick
themselves up and proceed to their next adventure no matter what awaits them. Through the journey there will be difficulties, there will be fear, but nevertheless there will be one spark that can always light up and guide us to the right way
or simply place us on a new path.


Gameplay

Game screenshot

The Gameplay of The last campfire is very simple, and it can be enjoyed by anyone, despite their gaming experience. According to the developers, the game was originaly build to be available only for the iOS
devices, and thus it had to be simple to match the touch screen gameplay. Nevertheless, when the game was finaly released, it became available for all consoles and so adjustments were made. The player gets control
of Ember, a forlan who stranded in a confusing puzzle world. The player can move around in a 3D enironment with the goal of solving various puzzles. Some Puzzles are made with the goal of unlocking more areas for
the player to discover while other's are exclusives for forloms.Some puzzles are easy, some are hard. Puzzles in the world are available and require the player to find a certain objective in order to continue
their way, for example in the first land Ember requires a key which fell in a pond and the player will have to find an alternative solution as to how they can reach the key. Other puzzles in the hub world will simply
create a path for Ember to find either treasure Boxes or more Forloms.

The player visits a cetain amount of Camp fires where a soul requests Ember to help some of the Forloms in the Area.Forloms is the name of the inhabitants and in the game some of them lost their hopers, dreams
and purposes leading them to be lost in their mind (represented as Stone statues). Each campfire requires that a certain ammount of Forloms will be saved for the player to unlock a new area. When approaching the fire,
the player will witness a finite ammount of circles. Complete Circles represent the necessary ammount of Forlons needed to unlock a new location where as circles made of dotted Lines represent the ammount
of optional forlons left within the area. Circles whose inside are painted white represent the fact that the player has already found and saved that ammount of Forlons. The players can always interact with the Soul of the
campfire and ask where they can find the missing Forlons(one at a time).

In order to free a Forlon, Ember has to manuver around the map to reach the stone forlom and press the interaction button. Ember will then enter the soul of the Forlon and the player will have to solve the puzzle and help
Ember release the caged Spark located at the end of the puzzle OR move around the area, solve the puzzle in order to make your way to the spark, grap it and then move backwards in order to reunite the spark with the stone Forlon.
Upon succeeding any of the two, the Forlon will wake up, thank the player and move towards the area's campfire.

The puzzles have various forms, Some require timing events to avoid elemental attacks such as fire wind electricity. Other puzzles require the player to move a rock in a small space in order to light up the fire, then move the same
stone while avoiding the air in order to light up the thorn bushes for the player to proceed. Other requires the player to move certain blocks in order to form a bridge. Other require the player to memorise patterns found around in order
to walk properly on a platform. Furthermore there are puzzles that require the player to use mirrors in order to light up a certain crystal. In general, there's plenty of them as mentioned some are easy, some are hard and some altough
they look like a mess the player can randomly found a solution.

Collectables

Game screenshot

The game doesnt specify collectables as something that the player has to collect but there are available for those wishing to learn more about the world. There's only two things that can be consider collectables.

  1. Forloms
  2. As mentioned above, some Farloms are represented with dotted lines in the campfire which represents the fact that they re completely optional. The player can skip them if they wish to simply move into a new playable area. Each
    campfire has a small ammount of optional Forloms. Helping the optional Forloms will reward the player with a few trophies (such as helping everyone in the first fire, in the second etc
  3. Wanderer's Journal & Wanderer's Diary
  4. All of these, are placed in boxes around the world. The player will have to find their way around the map in order to reach and open the chest. Upon oppening a chest, the narrator will narrate the content of the Journal/diary of some
    traveller who found themselves in the same world as Ember. There are no confirmations as to whether or not it's the same person's jounral/diary or others. Collecting them is completely optional as they do not count towards 100%
    completion nor towards the platinum trophy.

Final thoughts

Overall the game is unique and good looking. The land of last campfire looks beautiful with it's nice cartoonish look. There are so many mysteries for the player to uncover and plenty of puzzles to test their brain power. The story of the game is
it's own mystery as there are alot of things happenning or that had happened from what the player gets to know. The music of the game is by far it's weakest element as some areas have little to none OSTs. For a game made out of three people it's very good
and plays smooth with various of animation found for it's size. The game can be 100% completed within four to five hours including trial and error and exploration. The game can also be found in various online sales of each individual platform and most
of the time with a very decent price tag.

This is a video with my Honest review close to when i played the Game

This is a video showcasing and reviewing the Game

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