Soaring through the sky, gliding through islands, collecting rings and racing to save your child — Kami is a simple flying game filled with charming, magical worlds.
One of my favourite things about going to regional events is that you get a chance to play games from universities and local game incubators and hubs. While at the Nordic Game Conference, I was lucky enough to play through half a dozen games from The Game Assembly, a Malmö-based university focused on game development. Of these games, Kami, from Featherfall, stood out the most.
Kami’s story is simple. You play as a bird who has had their children snatched away from them. To get them back, you need to race through a variety of sky-centric maps, gliding and soaring past obstacles to clear each level in good time. The floating checkpoint rings are never really explained, but they plot out a best course for the protagonist to follow, so grabbing them is an unstated rule.
There’s something zen and calming about flying through the skies as a bird, and Kami’s dreamlike sky-islands with their low-poly art style really nails that. The build I played through only featured a handful of levels, with the Forgotten Forest — complete with lush, densely packed islands — being the one I returned to over and over.
Sadly, as Kami was a university project, the stand appeared to be unmanned and there doesn’t appear to be much more information out there surrounding the game. It’s not unheard of for student projects to go on to become full releases. I personally hope that this will be its fate, however there’s no real way of knowing at the moment. Featherfall, as with all studios at The Game Assembly, work on a selection of games each year, with Kami built entirely from scratch (including engine) as a result of ten weeks of development by the team of thirteen.
You can find out more about other games from Featherfall, including Kami, on The Game Assembly website. We’ll be sure to keep you updated on the game should it continue towards release.
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