Ayo: A Rain Tale

Ayo: A Rain Tale is a charming game with a very important message. We take so much for granted in the Western world with water and other food resources on tap. There are communities where women and children have to walk to the nearest water hole sometimes over 15kms away every day.....hence their lack of education. Ayo is mainly a platforming game and is quite difficult in parts. Along the way you meet some spirits who help you by giving you gifts of humility, perseverance and wisdom. You jump like a gazelle and have the strength of a boar. The platforming side of play requires you to be quite nimble in your jumping skills and doing multiple things at once. I am on a keyboard and it is playable on this. I may have shortened a couple of my fingers from pounding the space bar....but I got there!! :) Your environment varies from a desert to caves (you fall down), mountains and back to the desert. You battle scorpions, thorn bushes, wild dogs, dust storms, lightning strikes, poiso...

Ayo is a pretty little indie with an interesting setting and a clever mix of realistic and fantasy elements. Reminded me of Never Alone, and that's a compliment to both of them. Short, but never wears out its welcome, and worth the couple of hours it'll take to get through the whole thing.

Frankly, this game seems to be expensive for the content. Since I managed to finish 1/5 of the game in less than a half hour, it's short. The character you play could also use some work, she doesn't fit in with the art style around her. Instructions are vauge (do I need to collect all the water in each level? Will something happen if I don't?) and then on top of it all I got stuck on the 3rd level. I have circled the entire level 4 or 5 times- and you *have* to keep going around, since apparently tunnels are one way (WHY)- and I still can't find the exit. Very frustrating. I hope I can get my money back.

Rising the water issue is a great and noble endeavour. And, the game target audience is probably between 8 and 13. For a kid it will be all right maybe. The game is slow, there is no music, sometime the zoom is too close and you can't see where you are suppose to land. The mecanics are very old. It is not appealing enough IMO.

Upon first glance this game seemed basic. However, Ayo: a rain tale is wonderful. The controls are excellent and the graphics are appropriate. The music is note worthy, especially for the title screen. Sound affects are HD and very realistic. I am so glad they didn't make Ayo grunt with every jump (that would've been annoying). Other than that, I found this game to be very charming. Even though children may be more attracted to this title, it is important to state that the platforming is somewhat challenging even for adults due to jump tension and obstacles. This isn't a negative thing. It simply means that the player has to actually try to jump accurately most of the time instead of just leaping carelessly through levels. I also found it nice that the rain drops took a bit of effort to find. I noticed that Ayo acquires familiar based skills throughout the game that afford her supernatural abilities. That was a nice little touch as well. Great job. Nice purchase.

Looks pretty, but ugly controls with hard puzzles is way to refund. Seriously, just fix the controls

Really nice charming game