Ruffled feathersĪs my partner and I booted up KeyWe, the opening cinematic outlined the main story, which works as a backdrop to the ludicrous puzzles you’ll be facing. Oh, and you’re no longer a human, but a tiny, flightless kiwi, a bird native to New Zealand. This has been applied to the postal service, where things from telegrams and letters to parcels and the sorting of mail is a multi-step process of zany gameplay elements and ideas. The premise devised by the team at Stonewheat & Sons is simple, and one that has proven to work in the wildly popular Overcooked series: take a relatively easy task, discombobulate it, and get players to work together to get the job done. KeyWe succeeds at creating novel ways for players to carry out familiar tasks, but it also turns a game about operating a telepost into a noble calling. You’ll be baking cookies and decorating cards to send out during Hollyjostle (the game’s answer to Christmas), and when an ice storm hits, you’ll be glad that you mastered those transcription skills so that you can quickly get out overlapping emergency broadcasts and ship supplies to those in need. KeyWe’s final act, Winter, expands on that camaraderie, and not just within the office. Zoey, whom you may only have acknowledged as a cephalopodic multitasking pro, dresses up for her shift wearing a witches’ hat and in a food-colored cauldron, having turned the entire filing department into a haunted house in which you must first adequately scare the letters before delivery. The mail still needs to be sent, make no mistake, but your steadfast courier, Bartleby, brings all of his costumed cassowary friends to the office to trick or treat, and you’d best make time to bring them candy. The game’s Wickertide event, much like Halloween in the real world, gives many of the quiet coworkers that toil alongside you a chance to shine. When the game then connects these obstacles to seasonal narratives, KeyWe really soars.
It doesn’t hurt that the world of the game is filled with wonderful absurdities, such as mayflies that are so addicted to the scent of glue that they’ll pull apart your carefully assembled telegrams, peeling off each carefully affixed word and flying away with it. But it speaks to the creativity and quality of the game design that even without much of a narrative to link them, these scenarios are enticing enough to urge players onward. One week, a sudden infestation of kudzu vines may have to be pecked away so that you can freely slide your boxes across the office, and in another you may have to first unbury the packages that you’re shipping out, on account of local sandstorms. This, though, isn’t readily apparent in KeyWe’s first act, Summer, which serves as a lengthy introduction to the game’s four main stations and the types of obstacles or environmental hazards that you may face in the semi-open-air post office. Always there’s a new challenge to overcome, but unlike the similarly absurd jobs that you take up in other chaotic co-op games like Overcooked, Moving Out, or Shakes on a Plane, the challenges here coalesce into a narrative whole that provides a satisfying return on the player’s investment. And for players, there isn’t a single week (level) or overtime shift (minigame) that doesn’t come with a tutorial. There’s never a dull moment at the office for Jeff and Debra. KeyWe could have easily coasted on its sheen of ultra-cuteness, but the developers at Stonewheat & Sons go out of their way to thrillingly depict the kiwis’ hard work.
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