While at The Game Expo 2025, amongst the 27 indie games boothing, we had the opportunity to check out Polar Pathways. The cozy Antarctic adventure invites players to explore an icy world as one very cute lil penguin – Peng Wing. Light puzzle solving and platforming take centre stage, giving you the freedom to explore the penguins’ icy home as you find yourself ambling through the game’s story. As cozy games go, Polar Pathways is definitely one to watch!
In my time with Polar Pathways, I was instantly taken with the playfulness of the game. As you explore, the usual guidance falls away – much of the gameplay sees players interpreting and solving puzzles via emoji prompts. I played the game’s opening level, which introduces Peng Wing and allows you to test out the sliding and get a feel for the game’s puzzles. From collecting fish to making snowcones, sliding about the little community of adorable penguins is a breeze.
As cozy games go, Polar Pathways certainly understands the assignment. Joining a little penguin as they adventure around, helping a colony with no enemies or pressure to speed through areas. Interpreting puzzles and witnessing the smaller moments around the opening area really shows the level of detail. Peng Wing even gets a small peek of what’s to come, though the game’s simplified communication thankfully leaves much up to interpretation. In a way, Polar Pathways really plays into that childlike wonder of just enjoying the world for what it is.
During my time with the game, I found it rather strange at first to have no objectives, so to speak. It was up to me to explore at my own pace. At one point, I even asked what I was supposed to do because I was worried I was taking too long. Venturing around the little colony of igloos and interpreting those emoticon prompts can take some getting used to. One could draw some comparisons to Carto or A Short Hike for how the adventure lets players relax and appreciate the smaller details.
The demo concludes with Peng Wing returning home to sleep, all the while an avalanche wipes out the town and all the penguins escape – except Peng Wing. In a lot of ways, the story pulls on that Home Alone thread as players help the little penguin find their colony again.
If you’re a fan of wholesome games and want something that’s not another farming sim, then Polar Pathways is definitely worth a look. I’m really looking forward to seeing how the lil adventure continues! After playing the demo, I also caught up with the studio’s Creative Director, Leyla Simone and had the opportunity to chat about Polar Pathways’s humble design and what comes next for the cozy adventure.
Interview with Leyla Simone, Creative Director of Ambient Games
What got Ambient Games thinking about making Polar Pathways?
Originally, it was a capstone project during university, we formed groups and had to come up with ideas to work on – I had seen this image of two Adelie penguins on the glistening snow and wondered what their story might be, which is where the idea of a penguin trying to find his way home came from and we just expanded it from there!
What other games influenced Polar Pathways’ development?
Journey is a big inspiration for the design, mainly in the way it focuses on the emotional storytelling and designing with the player’s feelings in mind. Each level is designed through visuals, sound and level design to impact the players in a certain way, which is what we’ve tried to do within Polar Pathways. We’ve even created our own emotional map of the game, each level has its own height and colour to correlate with the story and impact.
Ours is a lot shorter but still incorporates that hero’s journey arc within it, players start with their ordinary penguin life in level 1, which all changed after the avalanche, and players see that in level 1.5, quite literally the levels are the darkest between 1.5 and level 2 as they travel at night and into a cave, they then feel the triumph and joy of sliding all the way down back home to their colony in level 3.
You can learn more about emotional mapping in Jenova Chen’s 2013 D.I.C.E. keynote speech here.
How does the game engage with themes of climate change? Was this tricky to navigate given the cosy genre?
We did want to add more of a climate change aspect, but with most games, scope creep can expand it a lot more than we intended, we were inspired by the way Happy Feet shows the viewer the impact of oil rigs and people through the eyes of the penguins and animals and would have loved to add more of that in, but we decided to focus on the heartfelt story and hone in on that. Our goal has always been to keep things short and sweet, so we can learn as postgraduates how to fully develop a game from scratch to publish on our own.
As a cozy game, were there any challenges in designing a wholesome experience that the team wasn’t initially expecting?
I think the skill level has been the most challenging to navigate, the wholesome genre brings a wide range of different people from all skill levels to it which means designing our levels and mechanics in a way that is fun and enjoyable for people who are somewhat new, to experienced. A lot of playtesters will understand what we’re intending straight away and complete levels a lot quicker than those who don’t have as much game sense, so finding the balance between the two has definitely been a challenge and interesting to see while playtesting.
While playing, it felt like the game was encouraging me to just explore and have fun. Has this been a surprise for players who might be used to games telling them what to do directly?
Like I mentioned, the wholesome genre is so broad, some people want to turn their brains off in different ways and so designing that first level and playtesting it has definitely been the trickiest task. It’s been really interesting in the different ways people can perceive something, such as a camera angle or an image, and we’ve really had to work through each variation to hone in on that perception we want them to have. It’s only the first level where we’ve had the most playtesting feedback, as the others focus on different mechanics and are more linear.
How does that freedom enhance the level design for you as a developer?
Our game has no text dialogue and is reliant on sounds, camera angles and 2D images to communicate and direct players, so drawing players’ attention to certain areas and guiding them through the level seems simple but is a lot more difficult than we originally anticipated. Playtesting has been vital to watch how players navigate and learn the mechanics, where they go, and what they find the most fun. This means our first level is the trickiest to hold people’s attention in terms of the lack of linearity which definitely is a worry as a developer!
How far along is Polar Pathways in development? Are there any plans for release yet?
We’ve been working on Polar Pathways for a little over a year now, not including our capstone project version which looked a bit different. We’re close to finishing up our Beta testing now, we’re still learning along the way, things like production and marketing are still new and reaching out to fellow developers for help has been so vital! Working in a small team also means a lot can extend the deadline but we’re aiming for the next few months!
Will we be seeing Polar Pathways at any other events in 2025?
Hopefully! We’d love to be at PAX, TGX is such a good event especially for indie devs’ first time showcasing as exhibitors. I will be in an in-person ACMI event for their Women & Non-Binary Gamer Club, talking about Polar Pathways in May!
You can learn more about the ACMI Women & Non-Binary Gamer Club here.
If you’d like to support Polar Pathways, you can find Ambient Games on Steam, Instagram, TikTok, Bluesky, Twitter, and Discord.
