Paper Trail

Paper Trail is a 2024 puzzle video game developed by Newfangled Games and published by Netflix and Newfangled Games. The game follows Paige, a woman who leaves her home town and journeys to university in the city, as she moves through a series of puzzle screens. The player can fold each screen like a sheet of paper origami-style, flipping the back of the page to create new paths. The game progressively adds elements to the puzzles that make the puzzles more complex, such as movable platforms, non-rectangular sections, or items that block movement or folding. Newfangled Games was founded in 2019 by veteran developer brothers Henry and Frederick Hoffman, with Paper Trail as its first game. It was initially intended to be completed within a year, but investment by a development fund led to the expansion of the studio and scope. After the game's announcement in 2022, Netflix agreed to publish it through its Netflix Games subscription service in addition to Newfangled's own self-published release and it was released nearly two years later. The visuals and music were praised by critics. The gameplay and its difficulty received a more mixed reception and the plot was largely dismissed as unimportant. Paper Trail received nominations for the British Game category at the 21st British Academy Games Awards and the Mobile Game of the Year category at the 28th Annual D.I.C.E. Awards.