{"title":"Forgotten Key","description":"\u003cp\u003eForgotten Key was an independent studio based in Karlshamn, on the southern coast of Sweden, that spent seven years on a single idea: atmospheric adventures built around ambiance and feeling rather than combat or challenge. Over that span the team grew from four people to fourteen, and nearly all of that effort went into one game. AER - Memories of Old, published by Daedalic Entertainment, arrived on October 25, 2017 for Windows, Mac, Linux, PlayStation 4 and Xbox One after five years in development, with a Nintendo Switch version following on August 28, 2019. It is a third-person exploration game in which you play Auk, a pilgrim girl who can shapeshift into a bird and fly freely between floating islands, landing to walk through abandoned shrines and piece together what shattered the world below. The low-poly art direction, the soundtrack and the sense of open flight earned it a Best Indie Game nomination at Gamescom 2017, and reviewers who admired those qualities also noted how brief and gentle the journey is, which settled the game at a warm but mixed 69 to 73 on Metacritic across its platforms.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eIn January 2019 studio head Robin Hjelte announced on Medium that Forgotten Key was closing. He pointed to market conditions, mistakes in prioritization, and the strain of running a commercial business while trying to do genuinely creative work. The wind-down was handled with unusual care for the games themselves: several unreleased prototypes were put on itch.io for free, and Hjelte wrote that the team's main concern was \"to find good homes for the worlds we have built,\" with the hope that AER - Memories of Old would remain available on every platform it launched on indefinitely. That hope has held, and it is why the catalog still matters. Forgotten Key never got a second commercial release, so AER is the whole of what the studio had to say, an unhurried few hours of flight and quiet discovery from a team that chose atmosphere over scale. For players who value that kind of game, it is worth the time, and buying it now is also the simplest way to keep a small Swedish studio's one finished world in circulation.\u003c\/p\u003e","products":[{"product_id":"aer-memories-of-old-steam","title":"AER Memories of Old","description":"\u003cp class=\"lead\"\u003eAER Memories of Old is a quiet, open-world adventure built around the simple joy of flight. You play Auk, one of the last shapeshifters in a world that was torn apart long ago, leaving only scattered islands drifting through an endless sky. With a thought she becomes a bird, and all of that sky is yours to cross as you follow a pilgrimage toward the Land of Gods and the secrets that might keep what remains from falling into darkness.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003ch2\u003eA Pilgrimage Through a Shattered World\u003c\/h2\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThe gods of old are forgotten, lost in the cataclysm that broke the world into fragments. What survives is beautiful and fragile: colorful islands hanging in the air, ancient ruins half-swallowed by grass and mist, and a handful of people still holding on to the old stories. Auk is sent out on a pilgrimage to visit the temples of those gods, and each place she reaches adds another piece to the picture of what happened and what is coming. Forgotten Key tells that story lightly, through the places you find and the few people you meet along the way, and it trusts you to draw your own conclusions rather than spelling everything out.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003ch2\u003eBecome a Bird at Will\u003c\/h2\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eFlight in AER is instant and unconditional. Step off any ledge, press a button, and Auk transforms in mid-air, wings spread, the island shrinking below her. There is no stamina bar, no fuel and no timer. You can skim low over the water, climb until the clouds close in, then bank toward whatever shape catches your eye on the horizon and land there to explore on foot. Because the world is one continuous sky with no walls between its islands, the pull to see what is over the next ridge never lets up, and the route you take between the temples is entirely your own.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003ch2\u003eLantern, Ruins and Temples\u003c\/h2\u003e\n\u003cdl\u003e\n\u003cdt\u003eThe lantern of memories\u003c\/dt\u003e\n\u003cdd\u003eOn foot, Auk carries a lantern that reveals what the world has forgotten. Raise it inside the ruins and ghostly echoes of the people who once lived there play out around you, showing the moments that led to the gods being lost. It is the game's main way of telling its story, and it rewards poking into every corner.\u003c\/dd\u003e\n\u003cdt\u003eTemples of the old gods\u003c\/dt\u003e\n\u003cdd\u003eThe pilgrimage leads through a series of temples, each a dedicated space with its own atmosphere and gentle environmental puzzles. Nothing here is punishing; the challenge is in reading the space, noticing what the lantern shows you and working out how the pieces connect before the way forward opens.\u003c\/dd\u003e\n\u003cdt\u003eSecrets across the islands\u003c\/dt\u003e\n\u003cdd\u003eBeyond the main path, the islands are dotted with hidden ruins, shrines and quiet vantage points that exist purely for the pleasure of finding them. Flying between them, dropping down to investigate and lifting off again is the loop the whole game is built on, and it stays satisfying from the first island to the last.\u003c\/dd\u003e\n\u003c\/dl\u003e\n\n\u003ch2\u003eArt and Sound That Carry the Mood\u003c\/h2\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eAER's world is drawn in clean, minimalist low-poly shapes and bold, saturated color, so every island reads like a painting from the air and every sunset over the water is worth stopping for. The soundtrack does a great deal of the work too, swelling as you climb and settling into something softer as you land, and it has stayed with a lot of players long after the credits. This is a short game, a few hours from start to finish, and a calm one: there is no combat and no failure state waiting to interrupt the mood. Full controller support makes it an easy one to settle into from the couch. Forgotten Key, the small Swedish studio behind it, set out to make a game about feeling free in the sky, and that feeling is exactly what it delivers.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003cp\u003eIf you have ever wanted a game that simply lets you fly, with a world worth flying through and a gentle mystery to follow when you touch down, AER Memories of Old is waiting. Pick up your key, step off the edge and see where the sky takes you.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Daedalic Entertainment","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":31424789643350,"sku":"PC_4408439898198_DL_GL","price":6.79,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0875\/3268\/files\/card-aer-memories-of-old-pc-mac-linux-steam-game.jpg?v=1789767143"}],"url":"https:\/\/www.pjsgames.com\/collections\/forgotten-key.oembed","provider":"PJ's Games","version":"1.0","type":"link"}