The first time I saw Pavilion was at the inaugural BitSummit. It was tucked away in a back corner and almost impossible to get to through the press of bodies, but Visiontrick Media developer Henrik Flink was showing the surrealist puzzle game to anyone who managed to find it. It's been four and a half years since then, and now Pavilion has finally made it out into the wild.
The goal in Pavilion is to see a little man through a surreal landscape by manipulating the environment around him. Ringing bells draws him by the shortest path he can find, but he's afraid of the dark and won't go through it voluntarily. It's a matter of drawing his attention where you want it so that he'll walk over switches, find items, manipulate power consoles, and the like. Sometimes the player must take action while the little man is already in motion, diverting him from his established path.
Pavilion is a game without words, except in the menus; all the clues the player needs to both the story and the solving of puzzles are found in the environment. The developers at Visiontrick have gone to a great deal of trouble to insert layers of meaning through the environment art, and forcing the player to examine everything really makes that environmental storytelling (story hinting") stand out.

I would recommend Pavilion to anyone who likes puzzle games that rely on observation or hidden object games. I also recommend it to anyone who is interested in games as art, for the beauty of the en...