The Merlies Review

The Merlies turns a post-apocalyptic world into a peaceful adventure filled with tiny birds, creative platforming, environmental puzzles, village building, and a heartfelt message about cooperation, recycling, and finding hope in the smallest things.

Most post-apocalyptic games are about survival, danger, and ruined cities. The Merlies does something different. Instead of playing as a tough survivor in a harsh wasteland, you guide a group of tiny birds as they try to rebuild their lives in the remnants of human civilization. The art style draws on graphic novels and children's picture books, giving the world a handmade look that sets it apart from other, darker post-apocalyptic games.

A massive storm has scattered The Merlies, destroying their home and splitting the tiny birds apart. Your job is to explore this new world, find the missing Merlies, gather useful scraps, and slowly build a new home for everyone. 

This leads to an adventure focused on exploration, with platforming, environmental puzzles, some village building, and a metroidvania-style layout, but without combat. You don’t fight enemies; instead, you find ways to get past the world’s challenges.

That decision gives The Merlies its identity. This choice is what makes The Merlies stand out. A huge storm scatters them. These tiny birds are fragile, and the world around them is enormous. A simple rock, thorn, tree, pipe, or fallen billboard can become a major obstacle when you're only a few inches tall.

As you travel, you look for other Merlies. Some join your group and help you get around, while others go straight back to the Nest. Or a traditional villain. Instead, it focuses on rebuilding a community after a disaster. Human civilization has disappeared, nature has begun reclaiming the world, and the Merlies must learn to live in this new environment.

This gives the game a warm and welcoming, elegiac tone. The remains of humanity are everywhere, but they are not presented simply as symbols of destruction. Old objects become useful resources for the birds.

A lamp can become a house, an ice cube tray can become storage, and a slate can become a giant map. To humans, these things are just junk. The Merlies are valuable resources that help the whole community survive. The story matches the game’s main idea: you don’t need a lot to build something meaningful if you know how to use what you have.

The Merlies is fundamentally an exploration game. 

At its core, The Merlies is about exploring. No enemies to fight or combat system to worry about. You also don’t need to sneak around or hide. Instead, the world itself challenges you. Sometimes the world feels like a big natural maze, with hidden paths and passages you have to discover. This turns exploration into the main reward.

The game calls itself a “wholesomevania,” which is a fitting description. You explore a connected 2D world, discover new Merlies and abilities, and use them to reach places you couldn’t reach before. But The Merlies doesn’t copy the combat-heavy style of classic Metroidvania games. Progress focuses on movement, environmental interaction, and teamwork between the birds.

This makes the game feel much more relaxed. You don’t have to worry about enemy attacks or losing health. Instead, you can focus on exploring, finding hidden paths, and choosing which Merlies you need to get past certain obstacles. The gameplay idea is how the Merlies work together. 

One of the best parts of the gameplay is how the Merlies work as a team. Each bird has its own abilities, and the more Merlies you have, the more ways you can interact with the world. You can stack them, move them around, split them into smaller groups, and use their skills to solve puzzles.

The lower birds can launch the top one onto a higher platform, after which you can find a way to bring the rest of the group upward. You can also divide your flock. You can also split your flock and have different groups do separate tasks at the same time. This means the puzzles are about teamwork, not just flipping switches or solving standard logic puzzles. These interactions make these moments even more fun.

The world's scale makes these moments even more fun.

Since the Merlies are tiny, normal human objects seem huge. A fallen billboard becomes a platform, electric cables become climbing routes, pipes become tunnels to explore, and mushrooms can launch the birds into the air. This creates a world where you’re always seeing familiar things in new ways.n The platforming is easy to get into.

Even things that are usually tricky in other games, like double jumping, are pretty forgiving here. No timers push you to hurry, and with no enemies, you can focus on moving around. This easy approach is one of the game’s best features. It's about finding missing Merlies. Exploring isn’t just about finding lost Merlies left behind by the long-gone humans.

As you move through the world, you pick up scraps humans left behind. You use these materials to build the Nest, a major part of your progress in the game. Each building needs different items, so you have a good reason to explore every area carefully.

The village-building fits right into the story. You’re not just collecting things to boost stats—you’re turning old objects into something helpful for your community, with practical benefits. One particularly charming idea is a place to launch lanterns so other Merlies can locate the community.

The Nest therefore becomes a physical representation of your progress. The Nest becomes a real sign of how far you’ve come. With a number, you can see the community developing around you. The discarded remains of human civilization gradually become part of a new home for the birds. The world design is what makes The Merlies feel most unique. 

It's all down to the perspective of tiny birds.

That change in scale completely alters how you see the environment. A human might walk past an old lamp without thinking twice. A person might walk past an old lamp without noticing it. For a Merlie, that lamp could be a home. And become an enormous map. Broken rulers, rusty music boxes, old shoes, cables, billboards, pipes, and other forgotten objects all become part of the birds' new world.

This makes exploration feel less like digging through ruins and more like finding a giant playground. It feels like one long stretch of similar terrain. Hidden passageways and interconnected paths encourage you to look around rather than follow a straight line to the next objective. There is also an element of risk despite the peaceful feel.

Even though the game feels peaceful, there’s still some risk. The Merlies are fragile, and you can lose one while exploring. This adds tension without needing any combat. The Merlies is one of those games that immediately communicates its personality. The developers draw inspiration from graphic novels and children’s picture books, and the handmade look fits perfectly with the tiny birds and huge environments.

Their small movements and chirping help give the flock personality even when they aren't delivering conventional dialogue. The contrast between the tiny birds and their huge surroundings looks great. A cable is more than just a cable now. A billboard isn’t just something on the ground.

Everything becomes part of a bigger adventure because the Merlies are so small in a post-apocalyptic setting. Nature has started reclaiming the remains of human ciNature is taking back what humans left behind, making the setting feel hopeful instead of sad.

 The mix of greenery, old objects, handmade art, and tiny birds gives the game its unique style.

The audio design follows the same philosophy as the visuals. The Merlies communicate through chirps and subtitles rather than traditional spoken dialogue. The Merlies talk with chirps and subtitles instead of regular voices. This works well, since giving every little bird a voice could have been distracting. The narrator, meanwhile, is fully voiced, creating a contrast.

Without combat encounters or countdown timers constantly demanding attention, the audio has room to support exploration rather than compete with it. This matters for a game that wants you to slow down. This is important for a game that encourages you to take your time. Thematic strength is its approach to the post-apocalyptic setting.

There is no obsession with destruction. Humanity is gone, but the world doesn’t feel hopeless. People are gone, but the world doesn’t feel hopeless. Nature is coming back, and the Merlies are making something new from what’s left.

Instead of showing technology and ruins as symbols of human failure, The Merlies asks what can be created from what was left behind. Recycling and upcycling aren't just environmental messages placed around the game; they are directly connected to progression and village building. The birds survive through cooperation.

They don't need enormous weapons; the birds make it by working together. need one another, creativity, and the ability to turn discarded objects into something useful. That message fits almost every part of the gameplay. Accessibility and Controls: That idea shows up in almost every part of the game, with support for both gamepad and keyboard.

The source material notes that the keyboard controls worked well, and the overall scheme remained intuitive. The forgiving platforming also helps make the game approachable for people who usually find platformers tough. Timers give you time to understand the environment.

The game is also relatively compact.

ARTE lists its expected duration at around 8 to 10 hours. ARTE says it takes about 8 to 10 hours to finish, which fits the game's focused style instead of dragging things out. That's a strength, but it can also limit the available mechanical variety. Without enemies, combat, or more aggressive challenges, the experience depends almost entirely on exploration and puzzles.

If you like games with lots of action, deep progression, or hard fights, The Merlies might feel too gentle. It's relatively forgiving. The world can sometimes become confusing because of its maze-like structure. Finding the correct route. The world can get confusing because it’s like a maze. Figuring out the right path is part of the game, but it’s easy to lose track of a Merlie or a passage, which can slow you down. It's more of a deep management simulator.

It primarily complements exploration and the game's broader community-focused themes. These limitations don't necessarily hurt the experience, but they make it clear what kind of game The Merlies wants to be—the world. 

The Merlies is an unusually gentle take on the post-apocalyptic adventure.

Its world has been shaped by disaster, but The Merlies offers a gentle, unique spin on post-apocalyptic adventures. flock of birds asks you to help them build something new from the remains of what came before.

The strongest part of the experience is the way its mechanics and themes support one another. The best thing about the game is how its mechanics and themes work together. Cooperation isn’t just part of the story—it’s how you solve puzzles. Recycling isn’t just for show—it’s how you build your Nest.

The Merlies’ small size isn’t just a visual trick—it turns normal objects into huge parts of the world, toward the same goal. The absence of combat and timers gives the game an unusually relaxed rhythm. You can stop and examine your surroundings and experiment with your flock; with no combat or timers, the game has a relaxed pace. You can take your time, look around, try things with your flock, and search for hidden paths without feeling rushed.

No combat, massive bosses, or a complicated progression tree make its world interesting. It finds its identity in small birds, forgotten objects, environmental puzzles, and the simple idea that a community can create something beautiful from almost nothing.