TCHIA

Explore a beautiful tropical island filled with magic

- Christopher Livingston

I've solved puzzles in adventure games by using a crab before, but I've never solved a puzzle by becoming one. But when I need to cut a chain in Tchia, that's just what I do. I soul-hop into a crab and use its (now my) pincers to snip the chain. Neat!

That’s just one instance of the useful soul-jumping magic on display in Tchia, an open world adventure from developer Awaceb. The game is heavily inspired by the island of New Caledonia in the southwest Pacific Ocean, where the co-founders of Awaceb grew up. In the beta I’m playing I’ve got access to only one of the game’s three islands, and while exploring a third of a game world seems like it would be restrictive, the island I’m on is genuinely massive. It’s also stunning to look at, a lush and tropical world with beaches, forests, mountains, rivers, villages and camps, hidden grottos and caves, and it’s packed with all sorts of beautiful wildlife like deer, boar, lizards, a number of different kind of birds, plus aquatic life like fish, sharks and sea turtles.

Thanks to my magic soul-transferring powers, I can become any of those animals, at least briefly. All I need to do is get close to a creature and I can leap into its body. If it’s a bird, I can take flight, if it’s a turtle I can swim, and if it’s a deer I can thunder across the landscape much faster than my human legs can carry me. The magical possession only lasts until Tchia’s soul meter runs out, but while that’s maybe 30 seconds or so, it’s plenty of time to have fun and even solve a few problems.

SOUL SURFER