When I start to verbalize what I was doing in my brief demo of Hohokum , I begin to sound like a cross between a babbling junkie and a Buddhist who’s just reached nirvana.

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“I was soaring across the sky, weaving in and out of the clouds. I picked up these little elephant dudes, and let them ride upon my ever-growing back. I found these floating pockets of goop and had my newfound elephant buds drain their contents into their backpacks they were full. Finally, I swooped down into a giant vat, let the elephants pour their spoils in, and watched in peaceful bliss as the world evolved because of my actions.”Yep, I don’t care if that last paragraph sounded like some barbiturate-fueled nonsense – I completely adored every second I spent with Hohokum. Writers often fall back on the trope that a game has to played in order to be understood, but to be completely honest, that’s how I feel about Hohokum. It’s a calming, meditative, freeing experience that has shades of the excellent PixelJunk Eden, but presented in world filled with colorful, Michel Gondrey-esque machinations. It's like playing the classic game Snake, but with a heaping dose of ambient, creative freedom at your disposal.The true joy of playing Hohokum is in discovering how the world works with an unadulterated sense of child-like curiosity. The cause and effect of the world isn’t always immediately clear, so it’s up to you to poke, prod, and discover just what makes everything around you tick. Being tossed into the middle of a strange, foreign environment without any tangible sign of a goal felt a lot like playing the original Legend of Zelda for the first time, or more recently, last year’s incredible game Proteus. Hohokum rewards patience and curiosity, two things that many of my favorite games of all time welcome.Hohokum works so well in part because the simple, core act of movement is handled like a charm, leaving nothing between you and exploration. Soaring in and out of clouds, picking up passengers along the way, and figuring out how you can interact with the world is a complete joy. The new level I got to play was set amidst the twisted maze of a factory that seemed to run on a strange, golden, gelatinous substance. I eventually surmised (whether accurately or not, I can’t be sure) that I should try to fill up a central container with this substance by any means necessary. This took me across the vast expanse of the world, which was filled with tiny pockets of nonverbal stories, some of which I probably created on my own.Though the camera remained fairly zoomed in throughout my time with Hohokum, I imagine that if I had the ability to pull far back and view the landscape as a whole, it would closely resemble Heironymus Bosch’s famous tryptich The Garden of Earthly Delights. You could start your gaze in any corner you choose, and quickly find yourself lost in the wonder and minutia. I know I didn’t get to see everything in this stage, and I can’t wait to be able to go back and fill in those dark corners of the map. Oh, and just to be clear, nothing during my time with Hohokum got even remotely as dark as the right side of Bosch’s painting, so don’t worry about this game giving you any hellish nightmares.Hohokum a game completely devoid of the usual forms of friction like time, scores, or death. Its goal isn’t to make you sweat, but to calm you down. Hell, it’ll most likely invite that old, worn-out chestnut of the “is it a game?” debate. Brush all of that aside. None of it matters. Hohokum is a fantastic, invigorating, and wholly original experience that left me counting the hours until I could create another babbling, nonsensical memory.

Marty Sliva is an Associate Editor at IGN. No joke, had a dream about Hohokum the night before writing this preview. Follow him on Twitter @McBiggitty and on IGN.