Forget the flash of roguelike connotations and/or anything else trending for a moment, and the one-man Spanish venture of HiWarp will tell you that if you’ve ever roved through a library, looked upon a blade of grass or taken a few deep breaths in a sauna, you’ll love PiAwk.

And felt-tipped outlines are all it’s taking him apparently.

His first, PiAwk is of the contemplative kind aiming for 180 minutes in play-time with a stick-figured songbird at its helm. Self-discovery, liberation, symbolism and artistic purpose are all themes that you’d typically expect to headline, and they do.

The canvas of its playable demo further confides that this is a platformer in the brewing, keeping controls to the bare minimum of movement and an action that might either help the songbird in its lazy traversal by jumping/running or by casting a few musical notes.

And here the ingenuity begins, for said musical notes are physical entities of physical weight in PiAwk’s world, interacting with its constituents to disclose secrets and the sort. Puzzles present themselves without intent of being rushed into.

As a matter of fact these seem to encourage the familiar pause – the moments of non-pretentious meditation that HiWarp wants his narrative injected with. Marred only however by a slightly perceivable inconsistency in its controls.

I have been working on this magical mystic thing.. pic.twitter.com/s28NDtEFqm

— HiWarp (@HiWarp) March 14, 2018

There’s also a mildly recurring incoherence in dialogue, majorly in the adorable songbird’s musings of one-two phrases. Whether these are deliberate as intending to portray a certain childishness or not, I’ll leave for you to explore.

The fragments of its orchestral score that PiAwk share meanwhile were lovely.

The demo is at least a year old and was originally a means to gauge public interest; thankfully interest has abounded and for good reason as HiWarp’s social spaces disclose.

Release is hinted at a late 2018 period, while you may visit the official website to cheer for more.