If nothing else, Kairo is easy to synopsize. You're dropped into a world of geometric formations armed only with the abilities to look around and move forward or backward. With these latter superpowers, you can push certain objects and depress ground switches by positioning yourself atop them. The game is actually divided into a few major areas, each consisting of a central room with other rooms branching off from it. In each of these rooms, you have to solve a puzzle. Once all puzzles are solved, you move onto the next area.
With its distinct lack of story, Kairo's puzzles are logic-based by default. Every room has a different concept. One might present you with a series of buttons and a giant lens, leaving you to discover each button's function, as well as where exactly the lens is meant to point. In other rooms, the environment reacts to your movement, with blocks shifting and creating shapes or pathways depending on where you stand. In yet another area you must correctly position a series of movable blocks to make a ball ricochet from one corner of the room to another.
Giving the player little direction or context is the basis of many classic gaming titles, but in Kairo it's just irritating. Scarce in instruction though it may be, a game still needs to communicate some information to the player by introducing concepts that build upon one another. In Kairo, however, the rules vary from room to room. A few of the elements (like objects reacting to your positioning) are reused and the overarching theme of having to complete a certain number of puzzles to clear an area becomes apparent before too long. But otherwise, each room functions on its own logic, so the whole experience feels like a disconnected jumble.
The player isn't left completely in the dark. Hints are available at all times from the options menu, usually providing three textual clues (each more blunt than the last) for each room. While this is a nice gesture, repeatedly checking the hints screen is obviously not how the game is designed to be played. It's not fun being confused for a lengthy amount of time, but there's little more joy to be had from simply being told how to progress and then obediently doing so.
The joylessness is exacerbated by the controls. As mentioned, you can only look and move forward or backward. Movement is done with two arrows in the bottom-left corner of the screen. Swiping anywhere else controls your view. While this works well when in motion, it becomes less functional when at a standstill. There's no left/right movement, meaning there's no strafing. Worse, there's no way to jump. When walking across, up, and over blocks of varying sizes you'll invariably bump up against a biggish one and then have to right yourself. In many cases you'll have to rock back and forth repeatedly to gain the momentum needed to overcome your obstacle. Even if you find the puzzles enjoyable, chugging laboriously around the environment to solve them is not.
In theory, a lot of Kairo's goodness is meant to come from the mood it exudes from its graphics and sound design, but it all just feels cold and barren. Perhaps that's the general idea, with the ominous, droning soundtrack; the sound effects rarely more than your echoing footsteps and the scraping of concrete against concrete; and the settings composed of simple shapes, each dominated by a single color. It does occasionally work. Seeing a huge, abandoned block-metropolis looming before you is sort of awe-inspiring and one red-drenched area of creepy, angular tree branches is quite affecting. But usually the blocky visuals are too basic to exude much personality and the soundtrack is hardly hum-worthy.
With its simplistic presentation and deliberate withholding of guidance, Kairo is clearly going for a moody, explorative experience. But the visuals are just boring and the lack of cohesion in puzzle design breeds frustration rather than curiosity. There's quite a lot of content, including a fair amount of secrets to uncover, but the meager controls make this an unwelcome prospect. If you're a Myst kid, you might dig Kairo's jive, but even then I'd recommend the PC version. It has a jump button.
