The Touryst is a premium adventure game from Shin’en Multimedia. It combines action, puzzle, and platforming elements, all wrapped in a voxel art style and a good soundtrack with it. You get to be the titular visitor at the Monument Islands, leaving you to explore the friendly looking beach location. Conversely, you can also uncover its secrets through ancient monuments, deep mountain mines, and underwater caves.

Its relaxing set designs, fun soundtrack, and surprisingly massive scale all make The Touryst a must-try for fans of 3D action adventures. Similarly, you might want to check out Cube World or Cubic Castles.

From tourist to hero

A good thing about The Touryst is that its premise continuously grows into something more significant, mysterious, and challenging. You start out as a casual visitor who happens to find hidden passages until it grows into a full adventure that taps into Lovecraftian entities. For a full game, it has a rather short playthrough though, but it’s still fun and enjoyable.

In terms of its graphics and gameplay, it has to be one of the best voxel titles in years. For those unfamiliar, voxel refers to 3D pixels, or small cubes that make up everything, a visual style popularly associated with Minecraft. However, despite this seemingly simple design choice, the game retains smooth animation and accurate physics. Together, these factors make the game both fun and challenging in unexpected ways.

Additionally, its sound effects deserve attention. Depending on where you are, the audio choices can either help you relax or can make you feel uneasy. Also, aside from its main quest, the game also offers a couple of side quests that are purely optional. There are also a lot of secret locations. It might require a couple of playthroughs to get all of them.

A top-tier voxel game

With a lot of games adopting simplified or retro-styled designs, it’s easy to dismiss them as being all alike, but The Touryst immediately sets itself apart. The voxel art works well with smooth animation and accurate game physics to create an experience that is enjoyable in a variety of ways. Also, its world-building is superb, with pieces of lore and secret locations scattered all throughout.