...and people say we merlie around

Using cozy, Metroidvania style gameplay, The Merlies tells the story of a flock of birds whose nest has been destroyed by a terrible storm. After being scattered about, it’s up to you to find everyone and bring them back home to the new nest you’re building. As you find more merlies, you gain new tools, which allows you to unlock new areas to explore and new merlies to find. You also find new structures to add to your nest, as well as decorations to make it feel just as comforting as the home you lost.

The Metroidvania component comes from the game’s non-linear exploration. You travel from room to room, reaching areas you can’t explore until you’ve unlocked an upgrade later in the game. Since The Merlies is more of a cozy adventure, there aren’t any enemies to fight. Each room relies on parkour style puzzles to present the challenge.

You start the game with no tools and only three merlies.

As you explore new areas, you’ll find objects that can be turned into structures or decorations, as well as merlies with specific tools that help unlock new areas you couldn’t access before. You also unlock new areas by finding a certain number of merlies. For example, one of the new areas is locked until you’ve found 27 merlies.

However, your first task is to build a couple of structures in your new home.

To obtain and build new structures, you have to grab them in a way that evenly distributes the weight for the merlies. These structures are human items such as a sensu, a music box, an empty jug of water, etc. To evenly distribute a structure’s weight among the merlies, you’ll have the merlies pick it up from different ends. While you only control one merlie (merly?) at a time, the rest follow you. However, you can click down on the D-pad to leave your flock. When you stumble upon a structure, highlighted squares will pop up telling you where to place your merlies. You may need only two for a job, you may need all three. As you get more merlies in your group, you may find that a structure requires two merlies on the right, two on the left, and one on the top. To reach higher places, you can stack your merlies on top of each other. While stacked, you can also throw the top merlie further up. Once you’ve split the group, you can hold the left button on the D-pad to whistle them all back to you.

Once a structure is collected, it’ll be sent back to your nest. The next time you visit home, you can click “manage buildings,” which will allow you to place the structures you’ve found.

When you’ve found the right merlies, you can assign them to the structures. Here, they take on roles such as cartographer. You find merlies the same as you do structures, out and about in the world. These are easier to access; all you need to do is spam B to help them off the ground. However, merlies are usually placed in harder to access areas that require a bit more parkour.

When you’ve found a merlie, it will return to your nest. Some will stay there, others will join your group. One of the first merlies to join your group has an umbrella. When you go to speak to it, it’ll trigger a test run of the new tool in which you complete a mini-level that shows you what the umbrella does and how to use it. The umbrella allows you float up when standing on a fan and glide from one platform to the next. Although they are birds, merlies aren’t the best flyers.

The controls of The Merlies are fairly simple and transfer well to the Switch. The mechanics of the parkour can be a bit tricky the further you get into the game, but if one merlie gets lost or dies, you have the option to call it back. If all merlies die, you just start at the last save point.

I liked the map system and how I could travel from one area to another through the menu at all times, rather than having to find a camp to do so; it saved me from a lot of running back and forth. The game’s art style is adorable. The difference between each merlies’ design is an endearing touch, and the environments are so fun to explore. The pacing of the game’s progression is just right, allowing you to explore little by little, with access to new areas, structures, merlies, and treasures so that there is always something to look for and obtain.

The only thing I felt was missing from the game was a multiplayer option. It isn’t needed for extra help, since there aren’t any monsters or bosses to fight, but I think the game would be a fun shared experience.

With easy enough controls and parkour-type puzzle solving, The Merlies offers a fun, cozy adventure that can last up to 10 hours, if not more. For $20 at press time, I think it’s worth it.