If it sounds like a touch of smart non-linear design, it's sadly not. Rather than send you through linear levels where it feels like there's a goal to reach at the far right, as so many platformers do well, Degrees of Separation lets you freely roam about each world, making pit stops every time you see a scarf. To open subsequent hubs you need to obtain set numbers of scarves with the two distant lovers. Across each 2D landscape, there are a number of scarves to collect, each one dangling as a solution of a puzzle. The game's biggest issue is how these hubs are presented. It feels like beating the first world has given you a taste of nearly all there is to see beyond the sweet story, though for some that will be enough.

They're one-note, lacking variety even as later hub worlds introduce new mechanics. For much too long they operate on the same basic premise of pulleys and ropes. The puzzles themselves aren't usually that interesting. Having a partner by your side won't solve all the game's problems, however. Two players, thus, is the preferred method, both for puzzle-solving and just thematically, of course. When you're close by, they tend to find their way just fine, but get too far apart and the AI runs into walls and quickly forgets how to make it back to you. It usually doesn't work as intended, like when you use one character to call the other over. Swapping between both characters is otherwise a bit of a chore even as the game admirably tries to let your secondary character go on auto-pilot sometimes. Naturally, the game is meant to be played in split-screen co-op and it's definitely better that way. The element of splitting the world in half and altering it in many different ways is interesting on its own, but it's rarely supported with puzzles that make it worthwhile. Each character can alter the world in different ways, like Rime cooling down geysers to allow Ember to pass, or Ember melting snowballs that block their way.

This makes it important to be very mindful of where they are and where they should be. It splits the screen between the two and morphs depending on where they stand in relation to one another. This barrier is the central element of the game's puzzles. With a barrier separating Rime from Ember, cold from warm, the two must navigate multiple hub worlds on route to once and for all closing that distance between them. They meet on a bridge, existing in the same place but inexplicably different universes, one could say. The introduction sees these two drawn to each other, accompanied by very sweet narration that presets it all like a fairy tale. Ember dwells in a fiery land of orange and yellow while Rime lives in a frosty blue winter wonderland. Degrees of Separation tells the story of Ember and Rime, star-crossed lovers from opposite planes of existence.

Degrees of separation game review