Station to Station: A Fresh Spin on Point-and-Click Adventures

Alright, so picture this: PAX East 2025, and I’m wandering around, half-lost but thoroughly amused, and I stumble upon this game demo. Now, I’m not saying I’m the biggest gamer ever, but there’s this itch whenever I hear “point-and-click,” you know? That nostalgia trip, like floppy disks and dial-up sounds. Anyway, here’s this game called Perfect Tides: Station to Station. And Meredith Gran, the mind behind it, she’s got some kind of magic up her sleeves.

So, I’m thinking, what’s new here? It’s the same old clicks, right? Wrong. Gran’s spun it differently. Imagine this – conversations as your superpower. Leveling up by talking to people, almost like chatting could help you win an Olympic medal. If only life were like that, huh?

Now, Station to Station is kind of the cool sequel to Perfect Tides. No pressure if you haven’t played the first one. (I didn’t.) You’re still golden. You play as Mara, this teen trying to make sense of the world. No biggie, just your average “who am I and what am I doing” existential crisis that hits right around 18. Talk about relatable!

The game’s got this RPG twist, but it’s still drenched in that point-and-click goodness. So, Mara’s cruising around, collecting ideas like they’re Pokémon, or maybe trendy Pinterest pins? Not literally, but kind of like that. She uses them to have brainy conversations as she talks to all these random strangers. Maybe they’re not all strangers. Just go with it.

So, check this out: the game doesn’t have those “look at” or “talk to” tabs — none of that. They’ve stripped it down, streamlined everything, like Marie Kondo had a go at the design process. It’s all intuitive, which is fancy talk for “I didn’t have to ask for help.”

Oh, then there’s this whole party scene. Had to figure out where to go without knowing anyone’s name. Felt like me at a family reunion — awkward and a little lost. But, seriously, Gran nails that teenage awkwardness. I mean, full marks for making me feel like an antisocial 18-year-old again.

What’s crazy lovely is how this game echoes Meredith Gran’s own journey. You can feel it — the authenticity, I mean. Like she’s poured a bit of her soul into the pixels or something.

Apparently, we’re looking at a whole year in this universe, and it’ll take around 16 hours of your real world to unravel. But who really keeps track?

So there it is. Perfect Tides: Station to Station. Keep it on your radar. It’s heading to Switch and PC… sometime. That’s as precise as these things get, you know?