A wonderful parkour game. A great sense of speed with a decent challenge. The only thing I didn't like were the levels where you had to talk to people to open the exit. Thankfully that was only like 1 or 2 of the levels, so not bad at all. Excellent music and good amount of levels. I thought this was ultimately very well done.

yeah this game is great, it makes you feel like you can do cool ♥♥♥♥ even though you're just a pleb with a xbox controller hooked up to your pc. you'll finish a level and be like "damn I am awesome!" and then you look around the room you're in and you're like "oh yeah, damn." awesome game.

Vholume is a game that wasn't on my radar until a homie gifted it to me, and now this is easily one of the biggest surprises I've played this year.
It's an extremely simple game in both what it sets out to do and its gameplay; however, the care put into it leads to there being way more depth than anticipated.


Its atmosphere is easily describable. This isn't meant as a buzzword; it truly feels like Source games of the 2000s, such as Portal, Half Life, and Garry's Mod. It feels like you booted up a Garry's Mod map with no one else and are exploring it.
It's such a unique mood, be it the wind blowing or these megastructures completely deserted, places where you'd expect to find humans completely vacant. It's lonely, almost a little depressing, and scary, but also dreamlike and, in a weird way, somewhat comforting.
Occasionally, you do run into NPCs, though while these do have things to tell, they feel almost alien and weird in the best way possible, thanks to how they look and talk.


Now, the gameplay itself is quite simple.
You have a jump, a slide, a wall run, and a wall jump and can climb if you choose to.
These straightforward moves help you throughout your parkouring journey, and if you're here for the atmosphere and exploring, you can do all that. You can walk around, take screenshots, find secret rooms, and maybe find a collectible in the form of unlockable B-side levels on your way.
Despite the simplicity, the moves do have a lot of depth you discover when hunting for gold medals or climbing the leaderboards.

Essentially, there are three jump variants. Your normal jump; your crouch jump, which is a lot longer; and as you build momentum by constantly jumping while crouching, you get farther and farther, - and your regular jump after exiting a crouch jump. These three kinds of jumps add so much complexity to the system, because you always want to weigh out the pros and cons of every jump and if it's smart to slow down in certain sections to not drop into a pit, get faster and faster, or cut the crouch speed in favor of wall jumps and wall runs to reach higher places.
All these systems work together to add freedom to how you approach things for each single level. It's also helpful that you can use the crouch to maintain speed and do 90-degree turns, meaning as long as you do your job well, you will always find a way to get faster and faster. It's so incredibly smooth to pull off, and when you're in a flow state, you absolutely feel it.
The only issue is the rare moments where your character loses grip while wallrunning, due to some mistake like a small object being in the way. This can definitely at times be annoying if you're like me and hunt for gold medals.


So, the parkour is great, but how does the level design make use of it?
Well, for the most part you jog through linear levels, running through huge cities and flying structures. While their start and end points are clearly defined, there is a plethora of paths for some, so you don't always have to walk the same route, but instead, skip parts by using your movement well, finding small shortcuts, or in rare cases make use of the slow wallclimb if the opportunity arises.
Also, although these levels may offer lots of different paths, you won't really have an issue finding the intended path. The game is very open and allows you to go anywhere, but the places where you have to go almost always draw you in by seeming more important than everything else.
In contrast to the linear levels, there are also a few open-area ones, where you have to find a certain amount of switches to unlock the goal. They offer some more ways to do routing, but I still prefer the linear ones.
Level gimmicks are present as well, such as speed boosters and trampolines; even the B-side ones show off some as well, though not in the way I would've liked. Most of the interesting gimmicks are sparse, so it rarely feels like they're pushing what's possible with the mechanics.


Whereas I only mentioned small issues, I do have one big gripe.
Many mid-game levels and a big chunk of the B-side levels miss the point of why this game is so appealing.
There are some where it's genuinely just random geometry that doesn't feel like it resembles anything. This not only kills the atmosphere, since you can't feel all that immersed in random floating pillars, but it also kills some of the level design, due to you not knowing where you're supposed to go. This made especially many of the B-side levels feel like disappointing rewards.


...I enjoyed my time with Vholume a lot. I don't think the trailers encapsulate how fun it is when actually playing. Sure, there are some gripes, but the fact that I try to get a flawless run for even the worst of levels says a lot. 8/10.