If you’re looking for a casual game that will whisk you away into a world filled with beautiful artwork, satisfying gameplay, and easy-to-learn mechanics, then check out Project Pegasus’ latest release, TENSEI. It is an endless, ultra-casual, action game where your goal is simple: Climb. Your first couple of runs will be relaxingly fun, but after that, you may be left wanting more to climb towards.

Serenity Defined

Upon booting up the game, you’ll immediately be immersed in the world of TENSEI. The sound of rushing water, wind-swept leaves, and the occasional bird chirp will greet you in the main menu. These sounds follow you through the game and evolve as you climb higher and higher. Accompanying these sounds of nature is a looping, but calming guitar track that picks up in volume when you activate a certain ability. Adding to this Zen-like mood are the various brush artwork backgrounds that change depending on which height level you’ve reached.

The game begins in a monochrome area that is reminiscent of Japanese ink painting known as sumi-e. The environment will then shift into a Spring setting where cherry blossom leaves fill the sky once you pass 1,000 meters. My personal favorite is the Summer area where the sky is filled with gray clouds and gentle rain. I won’t spoil the rest, but there are a few more areas you can reach that encourage you to keep going higher. On my first couple of runs, I found myself stopping and admiring the world around me multiple times. I couldn’t help but feel relaxed as I climbed further and further.

The Little Ball That Could

So what sort of character or creature will you take control of that will help you on your journey upwards? If you guessed a tiny, shapeshifting ball then you’d be right. This neat little entity can morph into four different animals every time you jump around. Sometimes it will turn into an elegant bird that flutters its wings, or maybe it shifts into a fish that paddles its way forward. These creatures don’t do anything unique from each other, other than to give you a nice little visual whenever you press the jump button.

Speaking of buttons, the developers recommend you use a controller and I completely agree. TENSEI’s control layout is extremely simple and easy to pick up. You use the B and A buttons to jump and dive around the map. Your joysticks are used to control the ball and to direct the camera. I recommend bumping up your camera speed in the settings as the default value can be a bit too slow when you need to quickly pan around. The overall simplicity of the control layout makes traversing the map incredibly easy and enjoyable. Furthermore, you can jump three times in a row which opens up your methods of navigating the terrain a lot more. This might sound like one too many jumps, but trust me, you’re gonna need them.

Onwards and Upwards

On your first run, you’ll be given a couple tooltips to help you with the controls. These will clearly give you all the info you need to get started. After that, you’re free to traverse in any way you see fit.

In order to climb, you have to navigate your ball entity across various floating rocks and islands scattered around the map. The level design may look daunting at first, but once you start hopping around, you’ll quickly get used to it. Plus, you’ll encounter various jump points in the form of glowing flowers and gusts of wind that can launch you upwards.

The only thing you must either take on or avoid are the red rocks. These are called ‘worldly desires’ and your run will end if you touch them. However, if you jump above and then dive down–using the dive button–you’ll purify it and make the rock safe to land on. Successfully purifying these rocks will reward you with orbs (and gems, which I’ll get to later) that fill up a meter at the bottom of your screen. Jumping through rings will increase the meter as well. Once the meter is full, you can activate ‘Boost Mode’ (Dragon Form), which will summon a dragon that carries you upwards until it runs out of energy. You can do this as many times as you want, as long as you collect enough orbs to trigger it each time.

If you do happen to hit a red rock or fall too far down, your game will end. If your calculated score was your farthest run, it will save it as your highest record for you to track and beat in later runs.

All of these mechanics make TENSEI a truly simple and enjoyable game to play. There’s just enough of a challenge and motivation to keep you engaged in trying to get as far as you can.

Endgame

Within an hour or so, you’ll reach 10,000 meters. TENSEI’s endgame content unlocks at this point as this is considered the level at which you beat the game. The game’s credits will roll and you’ll be taken back down to where you started. This time, when you start a new run, you will then be able to go past the 10,000 meter mark without triggering the reset.

At the time of writing this, a player on TENSEI’s Steam leaderboard managed to get to 149,000 meters and now holds the highest level reached. The farthest I got was 48,000 meters putting me in 20th place. On my next run I’m aiming for above 50,000 meters.

Once you pass through the 10,000 meter mark, the environment will change into wildly different terrain. Again, I won’t spoil them, but they are definitely worth climbing to. By that point you should have gained enough gems to buy some things in the Exchange category, which is located in the main menu.

The Exchange offers four items you can purchase. Two of them are items that save you from a game over, and the other two are items that affect your gameplay. One of them is called Zen Mode, which, when turned on, will both remove the hud elements on your screen and make it so you are immune from the red rocks or fatal falls. It’s perfect if you want to do a run where you don’t have to worry about the obstacles and Zen-out. The other gameplay item lets you alter your movement by giving you more mobility.

I wish there were a few more things to unlock, but that is all that TENSEI has to offer once you beat the game. It’s not a lot, but then again, TENSEI isn’t trying to be other things. It solidifies itself as the perfect ultra-casual game that you can quickly launch and play to distract yourself from the troubles of life.