Indie | The Silence of Saira
Nifflas’ latest indie game, Saira, was released to critical acclaim in some small circles, but very little fanfare elsewhere. Laura Michet considers why…
First experiences with the epic indie platformer Knytt are sometimes like ecstatic holy experiences at the shrine of some saint: they can make us feel like our leprosy is being cured, or our blindness erased, or something. Of course, ‘zen platformers’, or ‘exploration platformers’, or whatever we might call them – those names themselves suggest a kind of transcendental experience. They offer to soothe, but they simultaneously offer to blow our minds, to reveal a world’s worth of astonishment. That’s the kind of high bar that Nicklas Nygren – a.k.a. Nifflas – set with Knytt, when he established the genre.
But, as time passes, Nifflas’ games really have been trending away from spacey transcendence. His most recent release, Saira, is also his first commercial one, and it’s the first since Knytt which has really departed from the ‘zen platformer’ genre. It’s more about challenge. Beyond simple platforming, it includes a variety of logic puzzles and clue-hunting missions, and some of these can get quite frustrating. Saira even includes time-challenge platforming missions, something none of his other games have ever dared to do. In a way, Saira is more traditionally game-like. It’s less about the ambient experience and more about the barriers the player has to overcome.
There’s been a change in the visuals, too. Instead of Nifflas’ iconic minimalistic pixel art, the game features a combination of clearly drawn animation and vibrant photography. Each 
environment has its own strong visual identity, and they range in tone from subdued and grey to boldly coloured. The landscape contains natural moments of pause and wonder. It demands to be taken slowly.
The music is also incredible. It combines machine glitch-growls with lonely wind effects and crystalline electronic sounds in a very appealing way – a way highly reminiscent of his older works. Atmosphere-wise, it’s flawless.
MISSING THE PLATFORM
Why, then, didn’t Saira receive more attention? Nifflas is an indie uber-god. Puzzles are a favourite indie element. Platforming is an even-more-favoured indie trope. Nygren is among the best independent platformer designers working in the West today. The game itself is hefty, with a large number of levels – depending on how good you are at solving logic puzzles, it may take you a good six hours to beat. There’s even a level editor available. The stars seem like they should have been aligned for a major success. So what happened? Why all the ambivalence? Why were so many news outlets silent about it, and why hasn’t there been much news about its recent rerelease on Steam?
Two very separate situations may have been at fault. One of these situations involves the price it was sold at; another involves the game design itself. It is simultaneously too similar to and too different from his previous work to either make a stab at new artistic independence or to fit comfortably into his old manner. It’s a half-step into a new style and, as a half-step, it has flaws. [Continues]
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[...] on a tab and I’ve been having a think about it. Laura Michet over at Resolution wonders why there’s a resounding silence around Saira, being the first commercial game by the creator of Kyntt. She brings up good reasons, certainly [...]
It’s been a while, but I recall Within a Deep Forest being hard because it was hard, not because the solution was a trick. Interesting article otherwise.
I guess the fact it is sold on Steam make the price look even higher. I mean, it’s not in the less-than-5$ category, and I bought GTA4 for 7 bucks on steam.
People talked a lot about the price of VVVVVV, and I’m pretty sure it sold relatively well because of that. Saira looks visually beatifull, but not as charming as his other games and not enough people talked about it. Personally I WADF is the best indie game available so I would buy any game from Nifflas, but the game doesn’t work on my computer :(
I LOVED Knytt. It was the game that got me into “indie gaming”. It’s gorgeous, and subtle, and flowed very well. I was very happy in finding out that I had powers the whole time in Knytt, and just didn’t know it. It wasn’t an item I picked up, it was just the game telling me my powers were always at my finger tips, and I just had to unlock it in me. Siara felt far less cohesive artistically, and play-wise. It didn’t feel as personal to me either. I only played it a couple of times, going to various planets, and have not progressed far at all. I just can’t bring myself to play it more. I wish I could. It has many very high quality and beautiful elements. It just didn’t feel like a cohesive experience.
Nice article.
I’m a big fan of Nifflas’ work but I just couldn’t get into Saira. The controls weren’t as easy to master as the ones in Knytt/Knytt Stories, your article sums perfectly my opinion on the segregation of puzzles and platforming and visually the game completely lacks the charm of Nifflas’ earlier works.
As for the price, it wasn’t the price itself that was the problem, I bought VVVVVV for 15$, 2 dollars more wasn’t a problem. My problem with the price was that I had to pay to play a game that, in term of gameplay, design and graphics, was clearly inferior to Nifflas’ earlier works. If I was in a Nifflas’ games kind of mood, why should I pay to play Saira when I can simply visit the Knytt Stories forums and download the current top 10 fan levels, or simply replay his previous games?
Had Nifflas made and sold Within A Deep Forest 2 or a second map pack for Knytt Stories, with 2-3 levels as big and polished as The Machine, A Strange Dream or Underwater Adventure, I would have been the first in line to buy it, heck I would have gladly paid more than Saira’s starting price, and if it was up to par with his earlier works, I would have begged for more. But Saira? No thanks.
Saira felt pointless. I love Nifflas’s other work, but Saira had no definitive point. Neither did his other games, but they didn’t need it. You knew you were trying to get to the end of the level, that there was some plot involved, and the atmosphere generated by the music and graphics was enough. The graphics for saira, though pretty, weren’t zen-ish. They didn’t create an absense for the player’s imagination to fill. Also, it was essentially really hard time-trials, rather than a thinking-man’s platformer. Not my cup of tea.
Where are these impossible time trials? I played the whole game (including best ending), and never had to replay a time trial once. Without spoilers, there were hints when the trials required a certain order; you just needed to take a picture of the particular wall with the hint on it. Even Goldschmidt had only short-distance runs, and plenty of time to finish the few platform jumps – even messing up once or twice. Honestly, when I beat Level 5 on my first try, I felt a little sad that there wasn’t a more difficult Level 6… or 7…
The platforming / puzzle contrast was odd, but interesting. Personally, I felt the logic puzzles were the most challenging part of the game, and redeemed the lack of decent platforming. The platforming came in small bursts, and seemed to be more of a means to an end – as a way of moving between the puzzle monitors.
My one gripe with Saira is the short playtime. For $9 (the current, apparently reduced price), I was hoping to get more than an additional few levels. The one star-map visible in the demo is all you get, and while the levels ramp up in difficulty, it isn’t a steep slope, nor a long one. I attribute this to the increase in visuals, which slowed down level design significantly. While the atmosphere is there, and some of the effects do add greatly to the overall experience (ie. the powercords on Dragon Noir), I’m still left wondering if the game as a whole would have been better if less time had been spent on this aspect.
Even the ending(s) are left hanging open, presumably to allow third-party levels in the built-in editor to pick up where the game left off. However, I ultimately felt underwhelmed when I finished Saira.
(For $9, I really shouldn’t complain, and Saira certainly held its own against other puzzle games (ie. Braid). But I still feel like Nifflas is putting the real effort into his other game…)