Playhear : Square Paper City
How an Electronic Music Album would sound and look if it was a Video Game?
Welcome to a new way to listen to music with this first opus of Playhear, a series of musical pieces made into games!
Surreal City
Settled in a weird and minimalistic place, Square Paper City is a Musical Walking Simulator with mazes, some puzzles and a bouncy and dynamic world.
A new way to play a music album
This interactive experience will make you live and feel a music LP as something new: semi-procedural, designed according to the game and the levels, moving and modulating according to your actions. The simplest inputs have dramatic consequences over your musical experience.
There’s also rhythmic totems to test your rhythm abilities, some shooting skills to help you find your way in the monochromatic mazes, some light Parkour, and other fancy mechanics.
Made with experimentations in mind
I made this game in solo, following my emotions and knowledge, testing visual technologies and interactive audio systems to provide a psychedelic but dynamic and fun walking game in a living painting!
I have also been working closely with some audio plugin developers as a tester and sound designer.
This game is a tribute to them (Unfiltered Audio, Rhizomatic, UVI, Bitwig, Sugar Bytes…) and to experimenters.
Finally, here’s the
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Push the Boundaries of the Way we Play/Listen to Music: a technical and artistic approach to interactive music
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Automatic Writing and Serendipity: a surreal way of composing the story and developing the game content with serendipity.
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Minimalistic Systems and UI: more immersion for the player. No complexity, immediate onboarding.
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Synaesthesia: attempt to make a world that lives according to music and visual connections.
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Focus on Experimental Art and Trippy Mood: I wish to experiment on both the technical art and the interactive music system in order to push the boundaries of abstract and artistic games.
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Diversity in electronic music genres: as I always done in my musical career
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This Game is an Instrument as Much as it is an Art Piece: give the opportunity to the player to play the game as an album or live show during a party or whatever.
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Use a Limited Range of Instruments: especially those that I’m testing for audio developers friends and a few others that I really need for the overall quality of the music
A game made by Tomavatars
Sayri: The Beginning
Don’t forget to add Sayri: The Beginning to your Wishlist
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FIND YOUR WAY TO A NEW HOME
Forced to flee their homeworld after catastrophic events, Sayri has crash-landed on the stunning world of Ayris. Inspired by its beauty, they are compelled to explore this unfamiliar planet in search of a new home. The journey has just begun, and Sayri will need to overcome many challenges that may be too great to face alone.
A TALE OF FRIENDSHIP, LOVE AND LOSS
Discover every secret Ayris has to offer by forming new friendships with curious locals along the way. Every creature you meet will have a unique ability to aid Sayri in their quest to find answers and settle into a new home. Open your heart to those in need and they may, in turn, repay the favor.
A BREATHTAKING WORLD, FULL OF MYSTERY
Every corner of Ayris will offer organic puzzles immersed in the planet’s environments. Exploring this world will reveal many obstacles along your path. It’s a good thing you have friends to help you! Will you find all of the hidden secrets? Each one will unlock new fragments of the story and exciting abilities to make for an unforgettable adventure.
A GAME FOR EVERYONE
Sayri: The Beginning is designed to captivate people of all ages. The psychological complexity of the story will inspire your imagination, while the vibrant character designs will appeal to your inner child. If you want the video game equivalent of a warm hug, this might just be it.
KEY FEATURES
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Experience a story of wonder, friendship, and overcoming loss.
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Explore a gorgeous, handcrafted world brimming with adventure.
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Befriend intriguing alien creatures and learn to put your faith in their unique talents.
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Solve organic puzzles lovingly blended within the game’s environments.
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Overcome obstacles using Sayri’s telekinetic powers and the help of your new friends.
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Discover many secrets and unlock new abilities.
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Uncover the truth behind what happened and find a new home for Sayri.
Don’t forget to add Sayri: The Beginning to your Wishlist
This game published by Crytivo
Read More: Best Walking Simulator Cute Games.
DIERY HEAVEN
I bought Diery Heaven and it took up to the ten minute mark before I had an idea on who this game was designed for and maybe another ten to fully confirm that theory. Diery Heaven is a secret fetish game for sadomasochists and I know that because I’m pretty sure completing it makes me one of them. At minimum I’m an unpaid intern. At numerous points I was ready to tear my hair out and it hurt so good.
Diery Heaven is a game that costs less than two bucks and feels like one of those things you put together as a final project at a game dev boot camp. It consists of five jumping puzzles and I use the term puzzle in the loosest sense. Essentially you are making precision jumps over a variety of moving and stationary platforms and dodging barrels that fall from the sky.
– Real player with 0.8 hrs in game
Read More: Best Walking Simulator Simulation Games.
About
A simpl…. HOW IS THIS SIMPLE! ITS QUITE HARD OK~
What I like
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short game (i finished this in 1 hour)
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i stream this and viewers just laugh when i keep falling from obstacles.
What I don’t like like
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there’s one obstacle i can’t climb up the normal way as i’m unable to find the trick and had to find creative way to pass it
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no achievements for completing the game
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“E” practically didn’t do anything though it said to press E to interact
Others
– Real player with 0.8 hrs in game
7th Sector
A great side-scrolling sci-fi puzzle-adventure game, occasionally let down by some tedious elements.
Picture Playdead’s side-scrolling masterpieces, LIMBO and INSIDE, add some of Cyberpunk 2077 and Half-Life 2’s atmosphere, and what you get is essentially what 7th Sector is all about.
7th Sector is a visually striking side-scrolling story, occasionally interjected with puzzle elements, set in a dystopian city of the future, the likes of which strongly resemble the environments encountered in Half-Life 2 and Cyberpunk 2077.
– Real player with 21.9 hrs in game
Thank you to the lone developer and publisher,Носков Сергей, for creating and providing a good game for me to escape, explore, think and enjoy.
The 7th sector is simply put, a very good side scrolling puzzle game set in a beautiful cyberpunk dystopian future. I can name a half-dozen games where it is similar in aesthetic and story, but it is able to differentiate itself from others with a no hand holding approach to the puzzle/problem gameplay. This approach is welcome to puzzle adventurers but newcomers will find this difficult to frustrating and reading user reviews not surprising.
– Real player with 14.8 hrs in game
Fluff labs
I actually tied out this game genuinely and the instructions in the tutorial can be slightly confusing, and the Transformer table is not labeled like the rest of the equipment which is a tad confusing.
The real main issue is though that when you submit the products at the end of the tutorial or the end of the first level the level end screen is completely bugged and doesn’t work, even on the tutorial.
Otherwise for a free game I was actually kind of digging the basic concept and somewhat silly story. Shame I couldn’t try the harder levels
– Real player with 1.2 hrs in game
yes
– Real player with 0.3 hrs in game
Frame of Mind
The term ‘Non Euclidean’ gets thrown around a lot these days in the puzzle game world, but after seeing this game & its unique monotone art style recommended to me in a YouTube video. I couldn’t resist.
Turns out it was free too? WHAAAAT?
Anyways, back on track. Loved the feel of this game & I hope it gets expanded upon in the future with more levels (or possible achievements?).
The Art Style really sold me here & the gameplay truly backed it up.
The team did a fantastic job & Iook forward to future projects big or small.
– Real player with 1.3 hrs in game
This is a great little game. Requires some thinking outside the box, not as much as some people say but it’s more innovative a puzzle game than most of the portal clones.
The graphics are fun, work really well and allow things to be turned on their head nicely.
Took about 40 minutes to complete (the other 25 was idling).
It lacks a story, the soundtrack is nothing and there’s no narration. For those not bothered by that sort of thing, there are very few downsides to this game.
I’d pay for a sequel to this.
– Real player with 1.1 hrs in game
The Door
THE DOOR is a unique story-puzzle with teleportation.
Travel through stunning landscapes with your confused robot friend, Cell44, and help her escape “the Big Thing in the Sky.”
STORY
Upon discovering and going through a secret digital door, you find yourself trapped in an alternate world together with a slightly needy, flying robot.
Guided by the robot, you must find your way home through a series of doors and puzzles leading to the legendary exit in the sky.
But, something is amiss: The omnipresent structure floating in the sky seems aware of your presence.
YUMENIKKI -DREAM DIARY-
Before you purchase this game, you need to keep one thing in mind: this is NOT a remake. Let me go over that again. THIS IS NOT A REMAKE. It’s a reimagining of the original Yume Nikki. Anyone expecting the same exact game as the original, but in 3D, is dreaming themselves. Trust me, you’re just going to end up massively disappointing yourself.
I managed to finish the majority of the game and got the two endings (still hunting down the collectibles). I’m going to throw this out there for you Yume Nikki fans: you’re either going to love it or you’re going to HATE it. I mean, by god, look at the reviews here…
– Real player with 41.8 hrs in game
As of Update 2.0, I can wholeheartedly recommend this game.
At release the game had been lacking, and was quite obviously rushed to a release date.
But the team that made it still had seemed genuinely passionate about the game, and seemed to really be fans of the original, and we finally have this update to prove that.
The game is now polished to a very enjoyable and fun degree, giving the player an almost flawless experience beginning to end, and the world feels so much richer now, and more importantly, so much more like Yume Nikki.
– Real player with 17.1 hrs in game
Dreaming Sarah
“Dreaming Sarah” is an adorable (and somewhat trippy) side-scrolling exploration game in which you play a young woman trying to wake up from a coma. Naturally this involves being harangued by a pirate in the middle of a desert, falling through the inside of a giant grandfather clock, and accidentally causing a massacre in a nightclub populated by aliens. (At times “Dreaming Sarah” almost plays like a journey through a magic-mushroom fiend’s dream journal).
There’s no real plot to speak of, other than the coma thing, which is spoiled in the Steam description of the game and not really integral to the game experience anyway (hence the lack of an alert in this review). The joy of “Dreaming Sarah” comes not from the sliver of a story but rather from the little throw-away surprises in its short, stream-of-consciousness levels (what is UP with that happily undead manor-keeper anyway?), the charm of the 2-D retro graphics, and above all from the excellent musical score by Anthony Septim (included with the game). The modern vibe of Septim’s ambient/trip-hop score provides a nice counterpoint to the old-school graphics and gameplay (one button to jump, one button to choose an inventory item), and dispels any hint of tedium from the game’s central exploration mechanic.
– Real player with 5.1 hrs in game
A surreal little side scrolling adventure platformer, with minimal platforming elements and lots of exploration through weird but well made and definitely dream-like 16bit imagery.
I’m slowly realizing that I’m bad at these exploration type games. There is a certain amount of patience required to get lost in its weird maps that go all over the place, in two directions or even looping onto themselves, and that require you to revisit them after finding certain items to see whether something new has unlocked. I’m apparently also not great at solving a couple of its slightly more abstract, lateral-thinking-required puzzles, so yes, a walkthrough was consulted. However, the game is good at creating a sense of controlled bewilderment that makes the exploration interesting, most of the puzzles do seem to resolve themselves after a bit of exploration or trial and error, and the different locations were distinct enough to keep fascinating even after getting lost in them for the n-th time. It helps that the game isn’t particularly long (about 2-3 hours, depending on how lost you get), so frustration is kept at a minimum.
– Real player with 4.3 hrs in game
Flux Caves
Flux Caves is a relaxing first person puzzle game where you must push pipe tiles in order to provide each room with a power source that flows through those pipes.
Firstly, the landscape, ambience and general visuals all combine to give a very relaxing, zen feel, and the whole game leans upon this basic comforting warmth. The soundtrack, especially, is excellent at surrounding you with this mood.
The puzzles, too are generally reasonably relaxed affairs. There is no time limit, most of them are reasonably short, easy to reset so you don’t feel like you’re wasting time, and you’ll find more time is spent maneuvering the pipes and tiles to the positions required by the solution rather than actually figuring out where they need to end up. Even the later levels can be beaten with simple trial and error and a bit of time. That said, this leaves you with a pleasant lack of frustration that can be present in harder puzzlers. Replay value is present, however, in that the game counts how many moves you make for each level. I found it fun to try and optimise my solutions using these counts.
– Real player with 11.1 hrs in game
Flux Caves is a simple puzzle game, the puzzles aren’t very hard but it’s still fun. I like the way to see the ball go through the tubes so it’s visually appealing to complete the puzzles. The game is a bit buggy and for example on level 17 there’s a passageway that you can fall through the ground. Also the outside seems very bad polished. You can easily access areas that you aren’t supposed to, and skip doors that aren’t unlocked yet. This game would be fine without the outside. Also the hidden cakes seem unnecessary, don’t fit the story of the game and they aren’t hard to find, I usually like finding hidden collectibles and get some sort of reward for it but in this case it seems forced. I know it’s a reference to Portal but still too forced. I had to force quit the game when I finished the game because the exit button didn’t work. The elevators gave me a bit of issues and had to restart some levels because of that even though it was not my fault. Also the player elevators were kinda boring to had to wait for them instead of having a button to press where to go. The most annoying part for me was the moving around the maps, I would constantly fall and had to find stairs to get back up to continue to move the pieces. I definitely would like the character to be able to jump higher and push blocks easier without clicking a button. So after all of this. This game could be a lot better if there was some more testing and more map polishing. I would recommend it if this wasn’t so buggy.
– Real player with 7.6 hrs in game