Understanding the Naiad Framework: A Comprehensive Analysis

There’s a moment while I’m swimming that I can’t seem to shake. I’m getting ready to start the front crawl. Feet against the edge of the pool, arms stretched forward, face in, kick out, and then…

…Suddenly, I’m completely immersed in a world of the clearest blue. That blue! The matte hue of the pool’s floor, just below a few feet of water. With my head submerged, I can feel the water’s surface arching over my head and shoulders. I even have a breath to release before I start thinking about my limbs, but for now I feel as though I could remain in this place forever.

This is a sensation that Naiad, a new game centered around wild swimming, captures superbly. There are no courteous pool walls to push against, and Naiad itself engages in a lot of backstroke and countless dolphin kicks instead of traditional front crawl. Yet that feeling of being submerged, being in the water with intent, a sense of belonging, that connection where your body and the water’s surface work together to propel you forward? Naiad nails it perfectly.

Naiad is a fascinating game, though initially it was such a thrill, such a watery pleasure, that it took me a while to notice this. In the early stages, it lays out a simple framework. Viewed from above, you navigate a variety of lakes and small rivers, encountering flora and fauna, engaging with your surroundings in an assortment of playful ways. You might find yourself gathering ducklings and returning them to their mother. You may collect frogs behind you and place them on their lily pads. You might coax plants into growth, or guide bees back to their hives. You embody a spirit of the river, and in Naiad, especially in the opening segments, the river feels alive.

It’s delightful, reminiscent of my favorite water games since Super Mario Sunshine. You notice the shimmer on the surface, the ripples as it laps against the shore, and observe how branches and flora ripple and sway with it. Yet you genuinely feel its unseen forces. You experience the current as something to be navigated as you use the simple controls: one stick for steering, another to accelerate, and a third to dive below the surface to bypass certain barriers.

This game excels in textures. The flora and fauna often appears almost like it’s crafted from paper: paper trees, paper grass, paper birds which you might have helped perch in paper branches. More intricate creatures are composed of various materials, making a bear feel like an interaction between its limbs and snouts. And the water itself? It appears and disappears, shimmering pearly in some areas where you can observe clear currents, hinted at in trails of bubbles elsewhere. At the end of each level, the entire visual artwork disintegrates into particles like wet sand before dissipating. Naiad invites you to fully immerse yourself.

Curiously, when discussing sand, over about two hours of playtime, if you asked me what Naiad was, I would say it feels like a gently crafted sandbox. You travel from point A to B in the initial stages, exploring various idyllic landscapes, but primarily, you have the freedom to do as you please. Gather frogs on their lilies? You’ll earn rewards for doing that. Similarly, reuniting lost ducklings offers you bonuses. You can consider these elements as puzzles, but they do not feel mandatory. They unlock various enhancements in the menus, and the entire game feels somewhat like constructing a poem with collected fragments of text. However, you can also skip as much as you’d like and just frolic around.