Walaber's Reason and Rhyme is co-op for exactly two

Reason and Rhyme strands two flightless birds on a mysterious island and hands each player one of them. It is an online co-op puzzle adventure built for exactly two people, no more and no fewer, announced this month in a reel from Toyful Games and now carrying a real date: October 15 on Steam.

Toyful is half Tim FitzRandolph, who releases solo work as Walaber and has spent two decades making games that feel like toys: JellyCar, lead design on Where's My Water?, the Saturn-brained Parking Garage Rally Circuit, the programming puzzler Replicube. The look this time is borrowed from Flipnote Studio, the Nintendo DSi animation app, all wobbling hand-drawn lines, and it is doing more than styling. The reason to watch this one is the acting. The birds mime, sulk and celebrate at each other, and the comments under the announcement keep returning to how much feeling the animation carries. Co-op puzzling usually organizes itself around the puzzle box; this one seems organized around how two characters emote across it.

Killscreen has always liked co-op that lives in bodies rather than logic gates. In 2015 we called Push Me Pull You the grossest couch co-op game, and meant it with love. Reason and Rhyme reads like that idea's gentler cousin: two people, one problem, and the other player is most of the game.