Ynglet is not the first video game to cast its player as an amoeba. Without an expansive repertoire of abilities to call upon, the single cell organism protagonist presents a certain kind of game designer with an alluring challenge. When all a player can do is swim, dash and float about a bit, puzzle and challenge must be carefully constructed from first principles. If it works, as in Ynglet, a meditative, chic jewel of a short game from Swedish designer Nicklas Nygren, there is a purity and clarity of design that none of the medium’s sprawling action epics, with their mythically capable warriors, can rival.
Contrary to appearance, this is not a game viewed top-down, as if through a microscope’s viewfinder. Rather, it’s a sideways-on biosphere, in the Super Mario style: your frondy amoeba is subject to gravity’s inexhaustible attempts to tug your character off the bottom of…
