Ynglet review – small but perfectly formed

(Nifflas Games; Triple Topping; PC, Mac)
As a single-celled animal, your options are limited - and yet this gem of a game is a masterclass in minimalism

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 the screen. To navigate each of the game's eight worlds, you must hurl yourself between bubbles of water, which catch and suspend you until you dash toward the next point of safety while seeking the exit. Ynglet is about managing momentum, about estimating arcs and trajectories while desperately trying, in common with all life forms, to resist the inexorable pull of oblivion.