Waltz and Jam have a ticket to Uptown

A ticket and seven stamps stand between Waltz and Jam's little ghost and Uptown. The journey there runs through an afterlife of strange restaurants, deserts and a castle claimed by Envy, with a shape-shifting puppy supplying some wonderfully practical company. Jam can become a trampoline. A loyal dog is already an excellent travelling companion; one who helps you reach the next ledge has a particularly strong claim on the job.

Flyway Games' single-player action-adventure arrives on 3 December for PC, PS5 and Nintendo Switch 2. You explore Downtown as Waltz, collecting toys, solving environmental puzzles and facing the bosses of seven realms inspired by the Seven Deadly Sins. October has brought a release date, a refreshed public Steam demo and a limited Halloween playtest of further areas. There's a clear invitation here for players who like their storybook scenery with something unsettling behind it.

The puppy is part of the puzzle

Jam's changing shape gives the partnership its most immediately appealing feature. The Jam Water Ball lets the puppy bounce and splash, while the Jam Trampoline sends the pair upwards. The developer also describes Jam pulling Waltz up to high ledges and shifting heavy obstacles. Those abilities develop during the journey, opening paths that would otherwise remain inaccessible. Your companion belongs in the business of exploring each place, helping you deal with its actual layout.

Waltz brings a collection of toys left behind by a legendary Toy Artisan. Each has a particular ability: some slice through obstacles, others push objects away. They serve both puzzles and combat, interacting with the surroundings, operating contraptions and revealing hidden passages as well as dealing with enemies. Combining those tools with Jam's transformations is an inviting basis for an adventure. A new toy gives you another action to consider when a route or mechanism catches your eye.

The pair look splendidly mismatched. Waltz has a pale, sheet-like body, large black eye markings and red shoes, with a ring above the head. Jam is a little black shape with wide eyes and a bright turquoise mouth. Against the dark blue ground of their introductory press image, they are immediately recognisable. The designs give the two leads a friendly presence before the surrounding world starts doing its best to look suspicious.

That friendliness shares space with boss fights. Each world's final trial puts an enormous opponent in your way, with attack patterns to read and openings to find. Waltz's toys, Jam's transformations and the environment all belong in those encounters. Defeating the boss earns a stamp towards the ticket. The same journey therefore asks you to explore, work out how your equipment fits the obstacles and then use that growing collection under pressure.

Downtown has seven different moods

Low, a guide working with the Black Sugar Squad, helps pilgrims towards Uptown. The route passes through seven distinct regions, each with its own story, secrets and trial. That stamp collection gives the adventure an easily understood destination while leaving room for the places themselves to be odd. A restaurant and a desert can both belong on the itinerary, with a separate sin giving each chapter its own character.

The restaurant exterior is particularly inviting: bright signs jostle above a long staircase, with trees crowded around the building and little creatures gathered by the entrance. The desert stretches around enormous orange rock formations, narrow elevated paths and hanging structures. Waltz and Jam look tiny at the bottom of that landscape. The change from crowded signage to broad, dusty distances gives the illustrated world a pleasing range of scale and colour.

Shadow Castle supplies a darker destination. This is the realm of Envy, where light and shadow mingle in the halls. Flyway's Halloween announcement also names the EAT EAT restaurant and Chef Rabu, with missing forest Pogoballs apparently ending up in the kitchen. The premise has a welcome streak of menace beneath the puppy's charm. If illustrated adventures are the attraction, our look at Moomin's floating theatre offers another journey built around unusual places and a companion's useful abilities.

On PC, the free public demo covers the opening hour and includes Central Station No.5, home to the Black Sugar Squad's headquarters. The separate Halloween playtest opens EAT EAT and Shadow Castle through a limited, first-come key allocation. It runs until 10 November at 11:59am Pacific time, with keys deactivated afterwards. Existing public-demo saves can be copied into that test build using the developer's instructions; keep a backup if you take that route.

For a straightforward introduction, start with the public demo. Its latest hotfix adds loading-screen tips and fixes tutorial videos, including their display on Steam Deck. You can meet the pair and try their opening journey before December's full release. For players drawn to tools, environmental puzzles and bosses in the same adventure, that is a useful way to discover whether this particular ghost and puppy deserve a place in the winter queue.