Little time remains between now and the March 11th release of Moon Studios’ platformer, Ori and the Blind Forest . But even after Microsoft allowed the press to explore a new area last week, much of its details are still shrouded in mystery. Information on the story is still particularly thin; basic questions still linger about Ori’s identity, the history of the forest he’s exploring, and why his fate is intertwined with it.

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I wasn’t able to obtain any further answers to those questions after wandering through The Forlorn Ruins, an area players will encounter about halfway through the game. (By the developers’ estimate, it’s about 5-6 hours in.) No story tidbits cropped up beyond a reference to an older race, the Gumon, and their inventions – one of which Ori must shoulder at start of the level and return to its rightful place.Instead, I got a glimpse at the variety in how Ori and the Blind Forest plans to challenge its players. At Gamescom, we saw a more twitch-based mechanic, Bash , which required faster reflexes to keep Ori constantly in the air. In The Forlorn Ruins, you’ll have to bend your brain a bit to keep up with its unique theme: gravity.The light vessel (a white orb) that Ori picks up at the start of the level allows him to both safely travel through its environmental hazards and walk along the edges of blocks and walls that he’d normally be unable to stand on. Folks who’ve played platformers like Rayman Legends and Constant C will find the concept familiar, but those unaccustomed to having gravity flipped around during platforming may find it confusing at first, particularly since the level ramps up difficulty fairly quickly.Almost straightaway, I went from jumping over the gaps in a vertical wall transitions to navigating the switches in gravity to grab a couple of required pickups and hop safely between a section of free-floating blocks. Mastering the concept of gravity as always being the direction you’ll fall opposite to your jump is the first step (and can be sped up if you “cheat” by angling your head as needed), but figuring out the timing and management of your trajectory as you fall can be trickier. The directions right and left are relative to the direction you’re falling, not what you see when looking at the screen.(For example: if Ori falls toward the left edge of the screen, moving him right and left is still done by pushing right and left on the left stick, even though your brain might believe you need to press up to go left and down to go right. And if Ori’s falling toward the upper edge of the screen, pushing the left stick to the right makes him move left, and vice versa.)Most interesting about this particular mechanic was just how straightforward its use was during the whole of my Forlorn Ruins demo. At this point of the game, eight of the nine “Skills” (essentially, power-ups) were unlocked, but I really only used double jump while getting that light vessel to its destination. I tested alternate ways to get at required pickups – like dropping the orb while standing upside-down, falling, and then using the Kuro’s Feather floating ability to coast toward a keystone piece – but it turned out to be far simpler and easier to hang onto the orb, jump between a couple of blocks, and then walk around the block closest to that particular keystone piece to nab it.The Microsoft Game Studios representatives on hand did note that Ori and the Blind Forest will test players in later areas with more layered use of multiple skills and mechanics. If you’re concerned about a dramatic leap in complexity, you can rest easy, though; the pattern of difficulty was described as “sawtooth-shaped throughout,” with small dips in progress as players fumble with and then master new concepts. In the second half of the game, after Ori’s obtained all nine skills, difficulty should have more of a linear increase than an exponential one.What the other areas in Ori and the Blind Forest look like and will ask of players is anyone’s guess right now: beyond the secrecy surrounding the story, there’s also quite a bit enveloping just what we’ll see out of gameplay. Popping into the menu gave light intel on what other skills exist in the game – besides those we’ve seen (Bash, Wall Jump , and Double Jump), there are attacks (Spirit Flame, Charge Flame, and Stomp) as well as a couple navigation-oriented skills (Kuro’s Feather and Climb). But that reveals very little overall.This mystery works well in Moon Studios’ favor, though. For a game described by Microsoft Game Studios executives as an “allegorical tale” about “self-discovery” and “self-sacrifice,” Ori and the Blind Forest does seem poised to deliver the same kind of haunting, high-quality story found in the type of animated films it so resembles. This is a stunning game, aside from the slight framerate issues in the preview build I played. A good portion of literature focuses on the foundling with a mysterious destiny, and hopefully Ori will embody that conceit superbly while challenging players. If nothing else, it’ll certainly be a beautiful journey, no matter how brutal the ride.

Alaina Yee is IGN’s tech editor and resident crow. You can monitor her temporary bouts of post-CES narcolepsy via Twitter