There's something about the oft-used phrase “[X] makes me feel like a kid again”, that gets under my craw. I always see it used in conjunction with something positive, which isn't bad in of itself. But I remember being a kid too, and while there are definitely positive aspects of it, it could also be a strange and confusing process of learning the world. So do believe me when I say that Tunic really does make you feel like a kid again, and all that that phrase entails.
Tunic perfectly captures the singular feeling of being old enough to play A Link To the Past but not yet old enough to read. It's in this way that Tunic makes you feel like a kid again and the basis for almost all of its design decisions. To accomplish this, the game does two things:
Almost all of the text in the game is in the form of a cipher language initially unreadable by the player. There are some exceptions however, which will be elaborated upon down below.
None of the game's mechanics are (at first) explained. While most are accessible by the player from the beginning, there is no tutorial, and on a first playthrough most players won't have an idea of what they are or how to use them. But, through collecting and analyzing pages to an in-game Instructional Manual and experimentation, players can slowly begin to realize what they can and can't do.
As a child slowly worming their way out of illiteracy, navigating a digital word can be a confusing experience. Without having to rely on written words to help you navigate, aspects of the game itself become the medium of how players learn to play. Symbols, level design, changes in the UI, all of that must be studied in order to gauge one's progress when the written word is still just a weird jumble of symbols. But still, just maybe, a world will pop up in the textbox that you'll recognize and that might (might!) give the tiniest clue of what to do next. Tunic smartly gamifies this and turns it into a legitimate hint system, where when talking to an NPC, one word of the fictional language will pop out in English, thus communicating a (small) bit of information that might help the player to progress. This process is repeated, but slightly twisted, through the Manual.
A great detail of the manual itself is that its worn and has scribbles and notes in it, as if a hand me down from a previous owner. The manual, of course, is digital; all those scribblings are deliberately placed by the designers in order to guide the player. They too must be studied, and can provide meaningful hints to the player. The pictures in the in-game manual often give clues of how to progress. Most of it is designed where it'll give you info on Thing A, with a hint that it's somehow used to get to/accomplish Thing C, and then lets you experiment on your own through Process B. It's these steps that make Tunic so engaging. It’s almost Metroidvania like in a way, except there is an added layer where knowledge itself is the tool in addition to the tool itself.
Tunic is a great little game, and I have immensely enjoyed my time with it. Play it ASAP.