Rarely have I experienced the sensation I felt when I first played Loom. A sequenced version of Tchaikovsky's Intrada for the Pas de Trois of the fourth movement of Swan Lake created a perfect, sweet mood for the haunting 16-color world I was contemplating. The mountaintop of the Weavers' island was an inviting setting for starting an adventure.

I was amazed at how charming the game was since the very beginning. Especially when I entered one of the small tents in the Weaver village and discovered that, although being small when seen from outside, it was in fact an immense hall inside. It was adorned with three masterfully weaved tapestries (although we could only see them as plain colors): the first told about the creation and the rise and fall of the First and Second Shadows, the second about the forming and decline of the Guilds and the third one showed more recent events, including the birth of Bobbin Threadbare, the young hero; on top of that, the third tapestry prophesised a Third Shadow and it was unfinished... . Ominous, ain't it? Continuing down the hallway the player will witness the first major scene and the first appearance of a swan in the game, apparently Bobbin's mother, Cygna.

From this point on, Bobbin will embark on an epic adventure in search for the flock of swans which just left the Weavers' island. In fact, the swans are the remaining Weavers, and their transformation is a sign of the coming of Chaos, the Third Shadow. Our hero will travel to other Guilds' territories, such as the Glassmakers, who live in a coastal city completely made of glass; the Shepherds, guardians of a bucholic prairie land; the Blacksmiths, living in a jealously-guarded citadel shaped like an anvil, and the Clerics, whose leader will cross paths with Bobbin along the adventure.

The method Bobbin uses to overcome obstacles and advance in his quest is one of the things that make this game unique. The Weavers believe that reality itself is a weaving (and of course it's true in the game's context). Knowing this, Bobbin picks up a staff belonging to one of the elders, an object which has the power of using musical notes to create spells called "threads" to alter aspects of reality. At the beginning, the hero only knows a few notes, but as he learns about the world during his adventure, he'll eventually master all the staff's powers. All threads consist of four notes (each note has its own color, which helps the player identify it, unless when playing the game in hard mode), some being reversible so as to create their opposite, and some are palindromes, meaning they can only produce one irreversible effect.

Trying to prevent the reign of the Third Shadow and with the magical staff and his wit as his only weapons, Bobbin will have to solve a variety of puzzles and situations, none of them too challenging. The game can be finished in a single hour if you have played it before. Your first playthrough will take some more time, but the game is quite short anyway. Regardless, it's a unique and rewarding experience. The beauty of its environments and the Swan Lake soundtrack are proof of how much love has been put into making this masterpiece, an artistic achievement for a 16-color videogame which, ironically, wouldn't be possible nowadays in spite of our advanced technologies. At least not with the reigning philosophy of the mainstream videogame scene.