Follow the meaning is a calm and clever little puzzle game. I really liked how it made me slow down and think. The minimal style works well, and the wordplay feels smart. Some puzzles confused me at first, but solving them was satisfying. It’s not super flashy, but it has its charm.

In Follow the Meaning, we play as a detective, Paul Tribly, assigned to investigate strange events unfolding in a small town. The town appears to be under the influence and control of a mysterious psychiatric hospital, hidden behind a massive white wall that seems impossible to cross… and whose invitation is quite clear: unravel the mystery by getting past that barrier.
The patients treated there come back with no memories. Between conspiracy and mystery, we mostly encounter individuals with three eyes. It’s worth noting that the third eye is considered the center of intuition, clairvoyance, and wisdom, allowing a perception beyond physical sight.
Remember the wall and all that? Could it be a metaphorical threshold to cross, a step towards clairvoyance and a deeper perception of things?

As you may have guessed, in this short adventure — which blends point-and-click gameplay with all kinds of puzzles — we dive into surrealism at its core: exploring the unconscious, dreams, and imagination to transcend the limits of reality (yes, that wall again). Logic and reason? Say goodbye. Welcome to psychic automatism and spontaneous creation.
Fittingly, the art direction — almost hand-drawn like a child’s coloring book — reflects the feverish seriousness of this creative pursuit.


If the goal is to make sense of it all… well, it’s not that easy. Beneath its gently whimsical and dreamlike atmosphere — at times bordering on paranoia — the game hides, in my opinion, a much more complex interpretation. The boundaries are blurred, reinforced by the voice acting and sometimes incomprehensible murmurs (which I consider to be one of the game’s strongest points). Between the tangible and the abstract, creative thought emerges (yes, surrealism again).
It's impossible not to think of Second Maze and Mitoza when it comes to that kind of creative thinking. That might even be the conceptual framework of this game. With this dream-notebook aesthetic, if we follow a meaning imposed by a certain thought automatism, are we as players creating or recreating? Especially through object associations, solving puzzles, and so on. Could this be the publisher’s guiding line? And if so, what does that say about the gaming experience or our relationship with video games as a creative art form? I don’t have the answers to those questions — or at least, not yet!
Still, there are moments in the game where we float in a strange, blurry space-time, somewhere between consciousness and unconsciousness. The atmosphere is as strange as it is humorous and immersive, with the creators’ ability to make us gently smile through the absurd.

Back to our dear Paul — that dry-witted guy we’re not sure we should take seriously, even though everything pushes us to laugh at him — well dressed in his little coat and hat, he just needs to blink to solve the mystery.


There’s also a side quest (two, if we count the latest achievement added afterward) that involves finding eight hidden cats.
Legend has it that if you miss one, you’ll have to start all over again. Watch out, Paul is keeping an eye on you with his blinking third eye. After all, the cats seem way more trustworthy than the doctors. Honestly, one might wonder whether meaning is something we truly want to find.
(Okay, not really — you can finish the game without finding all 8 cats. But technically, cats have 9 lives, so why are there only 8 to find? Should we conclude that Paul is secretly the ninth cat?)

Between blindness, vision, and clairvoyance, this is almost like an interactive stroll through a surrealist world. Maybe the only real question to ask in the end is: what level of perception will we choose when facing this world — or perhaps, our world?

Love this little game, and I love the thoughtful ideas behind it. A different perspective may be just what is needed. The Van Gogh inspired artwork is an added bonus and well done. Keep up the great work Developers!