Reviews from

in the past


We're all still trying to figure ourselves out, right? I guess so. You think that maybe it's done this time but you're going to keep peeling back layers, then putting on new ones, an endless cycle until your last breath leaves. If you try to stop and think it's over for a bit, you'll eventually find yourself detached, leaving personal orbit to find yourselves without connection. Was that what was important? No, hold on, connection, that IS important. Let's dive deeper...
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Sephonie would like you to look at the painting again and see what you missed the first time. At first it was clear, every single piece here is meant to spark an internal reflection. That's how we might communicate with nature, or at least try. Connect it with us, and once we do that and consider what it means in terms of the whole island, maybe we can understand what we might move on with. Or, perhaps, we're all just trying to find meaning in the little things. That's not really the full story though, eventually we go home. The research is done, and we put up our dresses, and retire back from the day's work. Did the island come back with you? Or maybe you just box it, compartmentalize it as another 'day', send it to the back of your head. Obviously not every moment changes us, but eventually these bits combine, flashes of life that start to become distorted skyscrapers that interfere with the work ahead, and in connecting with others around you, you will find yourself confronting that. Maybe you'll spend hours, days, months, trying to piece those together back into an organized box. They fit before, they can fit again. At some point you have to reach out a hand for help, tie yourself to others that, whether you know or not, are on that same journey as yours.

In other, much less complicated and psuedo philosophical words, Sephonie wants to impart that connection isn't just a process in how it deals with yourself, but also how you might light the path for others by sharing your own memories, anxieties, and fears onto the beautiful greenery that are the lives around you. Boundaries still exist and we don't want to tear them asunder, less we become like dust, but we join hands and feel together, holding a steadfast, tightened grip. Whether near or fear, distant lights countries away or together in the same room staring into each other's eyes minutes before breaking down, we hope for beauty in the road ahead by trusting in each other.

I like that Sephonie was viscerally moved and shifted by the rise and eve of the pandemic. I like that as it gazed across the cities and towns who all had to isolate, it found that the biggest threat for a body that EXERTED FORCE, REFLECTED LIGHT, IN AN INSTANT COULD BE GONE, was releasing itself to nothing. Intimacy is our net, and a beating pulse of our heart. A strand of beauty linking you and I. How lucky!!!

‚Matters of Care‘ by Maria Puig de la Bellacasa is (reductively described) a book about non-human agencies and what care can mean in those contexts. It’s about non-/human interdependency and vulnerability. One of its chapters is named ‘Touching Visions’, and it’s about touching, both in a metaphorical and physical way – not only human touch, but also the touch of plants, animals and things. One of the central ideas of this chapter can be summarized with the quote ‘You can’t touch without being touched’. For me, Sephonie is a game about this quote.

Sephonie is the name of an island with no clear location, somewhere far out in the sea. It’s a special and unique little ecosystem with its own quirks and natural wonders. Our three protagonists, all from different academic backgrounds, are there to investigate the ecosystem, how it works – its interdependencies. Over the course of the game, the one-directional analysis of creatures, done via the ONYX link-system, becomes more and more two-directional. The personal lives and experiences of the main characters seep into the island itself, memories become manifest, distorted; cities pulled into natural landscapes and vice versa. It’s not about how the natural wonders of the island work, its what they mean, what they become to mean in human contexts. A fish can mean a living organism, a smell but it can also mean the trip to the supermarket with the family, the one very weird date you once had, and so much more. Everything natural is hardwired into interdependencies with the “artificiality” of human worlds – and vice versa, and every little thing gains new meanings through this connection. This connection is always vulnerable, so it needs care to be sustained in an ethical way. But the quote of course also extends to human relationships. Where new topics arise. Like how borders create cuts in connections. On those parts I’ll have to dwell a little bit more, let me just say: Sephonie is excellently written, in every aspect.

Exploring Sephonie, the game, the island and [REDACTED], all these ideas come flooding back into my mind. The platforming is clunky as heck, the controls are the opposite of tight and responsive – but it’s still fun and very chill! The game connects all its elements into a wonderful whole, not seamlessly, but that’s exactly why it’s so amazing. The game moved me. I can’t touch without being touched.

"lf only you could talk to these creatures, then perhaps you could try and make friends with them, form alliances... Now, that would be interesting." ~ Albert Einstein
Sephonie is the mythical game that he was alluding to. We found it!

Cinematic platformers like Another World and Flashback finally make their 2D → 3D jump in spectacular form with Sephonie, which dares to imagine if your favorite cult-classic PS2 platformer had actual pathos, global concerns, and character development
It possesses environments with a haunting atmosphere like if the first Jak & Daxter game grew up by 20 years, attained a respectable career as a biologist, and took MDMA.
Achingly sentimental, but that's a good thing, you fucks are too irony-poisoned nowadays, toss out your depression memes into the recycle bin and try to form an actual bond with your fellow humans, Sephonie will teach you how
Memory is a fickle and suggestive thing, loss even moreso, and this game engages with these topics in such a way that you form an ONYX Mindshare with the themes and your own memories comingle with those of the main trio, where your memories sync with theirs and where they differ and the cognitive distortions that you four have in-common

HQ may have coincidentally landed on three kids of similar background to steer this ship but I truly think that this game describes memories in such a way that everybody will find something here to relate to, and if LGBT themes and the struggle to maintain a sense of Taiwanese identity in the wake of generational assimilation and a hegemonic unpersoning of the whole country is something of personal significance to you, that'll just magnify its emotional impact
Anodyne 2 was an easy 5/5 and Sephonie proves that Analgesic's talent is not a fluke and that they have a bright future ahead of them, can't wait to see what they come up with next

This game reminds me of the time I went to the National Park with my ex and his friends and surrounded ourselves with nature while I kept watch over his friends doing psychedelics. I did not take the psychedelics. Sephonie makes a compelling argument that maybe I should have.

Sephonie lays bare the truth, that the entire unabridged tale of human history is told by fragments of a whole, when we hurt others, we hurt ourselves, because we're kin, but we're not just kin, we are each other
Identity is important but it's also just a thin A.T. Field protecting our identity from becoming part of the same juice as every other person alive or who will ever live
Every part of the island harmonizes with every other part, because they intuitively understand the one truth, that being a cohesion we as humans have never been able to achieve because we're all screaming out for someone to love us and praise us and see us for who we are to ourselves, we lack the ability to reckon with our shared personhood because we're caged in our own skin and caged by our own egos, so when are we going to take the damn hint marker?
Ashes to ashes, Dust to Dust

"People killin' people dyin', children hurtin', I hear them cryin', could you practice what you preach? Would you turn the other cheek?" ~ William James Adams, Jr.

There's something terribly violent about living...

Sephonie is one of a handful games that I've been checking out specifically because I've seen it on other people's Game of the Year lists and it wasn't on my radar at all. Sephonie is an island, or maybe better described as the manifestation of the essence of the island. Sephonie is the game's narrator, or, at least for a while? Sephonie is one of the most strange characters I have ever seen in a game. It's like a Half-Life zombie texture stretched across a Kingdom Hearts nobody's model, wearing some kind of clownish leotard and high-tops.

The game is quite eclectic, a unique blend that's sort of difficult to describe in brief, but follows a clear pattern. You traverse a branching cave system using wall-runs and air-dashes, your main goal is to find creatures and interact with them by solving a puzzle minigame; whenever you find the "boss" puzzle and complete it, you get a long cutscene that usually details some aspect of one of the playable characters' lives, and you get a new ability that helps you reach a new area. While the core gameplay is platforming and puzzle solving, the progression through the gameworld could be compared to a "metroid/vania", and the overall structure of both the narrative and delineation of gameplay styles could be compared to a JRPG.

Sephonie is doing a lot of things that I really like. This game has one of the best soundtracks of this past year. It has a rather pleasing aesthetic style in both its environments and characters. I like that it's a platformer with no enemies, no combat; the challenge is firstly in getting somewhere, and second in the puzzle "encounters" which while having an adversarial tone in gameplay are contextualized in narrative as a kind of hybrid of scientific analysis and spiritual resonance. The game is generally nonviolent enough that it makes me wonder why stage hazards and bottomless pits exist in the game at all, it seems needlessly treacherous.

I almost never feel like I'm actually going the right way, even when I know I am. Maybe this is thematically appropriate for an expedition to a remote island, but it's no surprise to me that the game features its walkthrough on the main menu so prominently. The game has a lot of narrative, text, dialogue, cutscenes, the gameplay at times feels like a secondary part of the experience, and the puzzle elements are very slow. The game is clearly geared towards a casual, comfy, "wholesome" crowd, but there are so many points where I could easily see someone beating their head against a wall; fruitlessly trying to interact with something they can't yet, trying to make a jump to an unusually attention-grabbing background element, or mistaking the unusually obtuse forward path for a dead end. "Unnatural" isn't the right word, if anything the level design is naturalistic to the point of being hostile.

The puzzles are very easily to clear, but very difficult to clear with any degree of elegance. By the time I had finished the opening coral puzzles, I assumed this game would have some theme of "it's fine to make mistakes because everything will be fine in the end". I'm pretty sure the reason the puzzles were so easy was because I had sought out many of the optional creatures, and I think solving each new puzzle adds a piece to your "deck" which probably opens up a wider variety of potential moves.

Whatever the case, I assumed that the game's narrative would more closely parallel its puzzle mechanics, and would deal with the main trio learning more about and opening up to one another; while some of that does go on as a kind of necessity of the nature of their research, it's far from the story's throughline. I don't really know if I think the game has one singular narrative focus, I was more confident in my interpretation before I played the epilogue. It's a work that seems pessimistic about the present, but optimistic about the future, a work where the personal lives of these characters, real world events and politics, and broad stroke concepts don't quite feel like they come together into a single statement. It's just juggling a few too many big ideas for me to even know where to start.

In both its narrative and its gameplay, Sephonie is at times too complex for its own good. The final platforming stage introduces something like half a dozen new mechanics; new platforms, new walls, locked doors, keys that rotate around the player and kill you if they touch anything, a "cosmic Mario" style player ghost that you need to avoid, and I very well may be forgetting something. Nearly every new puzzle introduces a new space or block type, and the game has a dedicated button for telling you what the properties of the currently highlighted block and space are.

I wonder if I'm coming across as more negative than I mean to, but while I did ultimately enjoy the game I also found it frustrating. At times I think it seems impenetrable, at other times I wonder if there's much else under the surface. Whether it's a masterwork or just working through the time in which it was made, Sephonie does at least feel like a genuine piece of personal art in an affecting way not many games did this year.


90% atmosphere, 10% gameplay

Stunning visuals, great music, interesting dialogue, confusing plot, kinda bad platforming, poor level design

Unfortunately, I also found the core puzzle gameplay to be a little samey and easy, although it suddenly picked up a bit and got very interesting towards the end, though was very under-explored. Same with the platforming! Some of the best stuff is in the last 15 mins or so of gameplay, which sucks!

Nothing too unusual for an Analgesic game, but games like this, with nontraditional characters and unorthodox game design choices, can't be found anywhere else, so I'm glad it exists.

Extremely unique take on platforming that takes the focus off the platforms and places them on the walls. The story binds it all together and elevates the whole thing, and the link puzzles are a nice break/reward for exploring.

The conclusion to my Analgesic Production playathon and wow, what a way to end on a high note. Everything about this game is done masterfully. The aesthetics, gameplay, story, I can't think of a single part of this game I have any kind of problem with. One of the few games I've played that I truly wish was longer. Analgesic Productions should get a billion dollars.

I am a fan of every Analgesic game but coming off of Sephonie, this one is my least favourite. Although I got into the parkour-platforming and found the levels to be fun sprawling playgrounds for pretty tight maneuvering mechanics, I didn’t love it. I think that comes down to personal preference, though.

I have convicted criticism for the ONYX puzzle portions of the game. The game throws in a lot of curveballs into the puzzles but I never felt like I had to strategize. It was a very mindless activity for me and I never felt a connection to it, to touch on to one of the story’s themes of connection.

Actually, the story is pretty good. The plots are very basic but the thematic elements are strong. The characterization is pretty good. Like a lot of other Analgesic games, the characters are very actualized. They don’t come off as characters in a story: they come off as humans. Sometimes this leads to moments where their expressions are too subtle to be read, but the overall effect is that the story feels personal.

I liked the focus on Taiwanese culture and the character themes about immigration and being moved into unfamiliar cultures, the stuff about borders– all that stuff, it was fascinating. The text comes fast and hard but the themes looped around enough– it’s a rich narrative and will stick with me even as I walk away from the game feeling underwhelmed.

Analgesic productions is a studio you can count on to provide unique and thought-provoking experiences.
Sephonie constantly introduces new mechanics to play around with, the level design is impressively constructed considering the near-unfaltering dedication to organic shapes; it plays as a puzzle platformer in a way I've never seen before.
Give it a shot, and please play Anodyne 1/2 as well.

to bargain with an imperfect world...to advocate for the highest level of your ideal, fall short, yet still enable Something to be accomplished. challenging and healing in equal measure, an intoxicating dream and an invigorating waking. maybe the best game ever made if we're being real

everything in this game feels optional and i dont like it

La isla Sephonie recibe la visita de tres científiques varades en la playa, con la misión de explorar sus profundidades y descubrir las fascinantes criaturas de este paraje nunca hollado por la civilización. La americana Amy Lim, la taiwanesa Ing-Wen y el japonés Riyou forman la expedición: tres personajes controlables con propiedades idénticas entre sí (incluso pueden intercambiarse al vuelo pulsando un botón) y de apariencia mundana, pero capaces de realizar maniobras de parkour sobrehumanas gracias al sistema neuronal ONYX que llevan acoplado en el cerebro. Sin embargo, la característica más peculiar de este implante es su capacidad para conectar con la esencia viva e identificar sus propiedades, sus más oscuros orígenes y pensamientos. Sephonie, la representación material del intimismo de los tres exploradores (incapaces de conectar entre sí de tal agarrados que están al método científico), esconde un fascinante entramado de flora y fauna inverosímiles y simbióticas; que forman un vínculo, un todo lo une que atrapará a todo el que se adentre en su interior. Y con ello, sus recuerdos más recónditos saldrán a la luz.

Al igual que en anteriores obras de Analgesic Productions, 'Sephonie' es conducido por viñetas costumbristas mezcladas con un toque onírico, a menudo surrealista, que abren un espacio para la reflexión y ahondar en el individuo social, su identidad y su lugar en el mundo. No obstante, 'Sephonie' se siente bastante más ofuscado de lo habitual en Marina Kittaka y no termina de hilar su trama de manera satisfactoria, sin alcanzar un leifmotiv más amplio que resuelva los dilemas de los exploradores (incluso que progresen a lo largo de la aventura); sabiéndose basto y confuso. Se ven buenas intenciones dejando que los entornos de Sephonie hablen por sí mismos (something something narrativa emergente); también en el habla cercana de sus protagonistas. Pero es curioso como un juego enfocado en conectar entre sí se percibe tan desconectado a la hora de experimentarlo y jugarlo mando en mano.

Su página en Steam define la jugabilidad como "Tony Hawk-esque 3D platformer" y el resultado final dista mucho de parecérsele. Desde el primer instante, ninguna de sus mecánicas controlables se sienten agradables de manejar. Esprintar como el dragón Spyro y tener tan poca maniobrabilidad; correr por las paredes sólo funciona en un ángulo frente el plano muy específico; el dash en el aire que ocasionalmente no se transforma en doble salto en la pared por no estar pegado al milímetro a la misma; tener que pelearse con la cámara constantemente y su lupa distorsionada, que dificulta hasta el salto más básico. Por si fuera poco, el diseño estructural de Sephonie está compuesto de grandes espacios abiertos pero con una sóla ruta crítica, muy angosta de travesar, poco intuitiva a la hora de decirnos qué debemos hacer o dónde ir. Es curiosa la amargura que deja en el ambiente viniendo de 'Anodyne 2: Return to Dust', que ya incorporaba elementos de plataformas 3D bastante básicos, pero muy satisfactorios de manejar gracias al nulo riesgo que existía. 'Sephonie' exige maniobras más complejas que, a la mínima imperfección, obligan a repetir el paso y darse de cabezazos con la puerta por su mala leche asociada. Dentro de lo malo, el juego posee múltiples opciones de accesibilidad para evitar desafío alguno, pero no por ello evitan la insatisfacción de no sentirte partícipe de la aventura. Otra forma de desconectar.

Al conectar con las criaturas de la isla, 'Sephonie' cambia de género al puzle y ofrece un tablero a llenar con tetriminos de colores. Sin embargo, las mecánicas aquí se saben demasiado simples y malamente explicadas como para generar cierto interés o desafío en el intento. De hecho, la disonancia aquí está en la gran importancia que se le da al fenómeno de conectar con Sephonie… y que la gran mayoría de estas acciones sean opcionales y ofrezcan recompensas birriosas por completarlas. Casi todo se sabe opcional y prescindible en 'Sephonie', y no mola. Es un fracaso considerable viniendo de un título excelente como 'Anodyne 2', hasta el punto de hacerme dudar de mi abstinencia al jugarlo el año pasado. Pero dentro de lo malo, Analgesic demuestra tener potencial y tablas para elaborar experiencias originales en este mundillo, diversas y siempre evocadoras con 'Sephonie'. Simplemente me hubiera gustado conectar más con él de lo que lo hice al final.

A great platformer from Analgesic Productions.
While the moveset is limited, sometimes even clunky, it feels free. Levels large but offer a lot of variety. Figuring out how to navigate them is a lot of fun. Optional collectibles are placed just out of reach, and challenge you to figure out how to get them.
The Link puzzles are easy but offer a nice break from platforming.
Visually and aurally pleasing, and the writing is excellent. Characters feel real and complex, which helps to elevate the story.

i'm an analgesic simp so i already knew i was going to dig the entire package, although i have to admit i wasn't too keen on the platforming mechanics. despite that though, the story is engaging and very unique. melos and marina have a really interesting and unique voice in the way they do game stories and i love it.

Beaten: May 20, 2022
Time: 10.95 Hours
Platform: Mac



Honestly I wasn’t completely sold on Sephonie at first. It’s another game from Analgesic Games, and while I’ve loved all their other games, this one was primarily a 3D platformer, which isn’t usually a genre I love. On top of that, I’d only been lukewarm on the demo (which I now mostly attribute to trying to play it on a 2017 Macbook keyboard). Even still, I was excited and I tried to go in and have fun with the unique platforming and the cool tetris-like puzzles.



I’ll be honest, I don’t really want to write about the gameplay. It was good and fun, a bit frustrating at moments and rooted in things that weren’t my speed really, but obviously well designed and robust. The puzzle aspect was cool too, never all that hard once I got the hang of it but nice and slow compared to the reaction-based gameplay of the rest of the game. 



Stylistically, the game is wonderful. Melos has outdone himself on the music yet again, and while I’m not sure it’ll hold such a place in my heart as the Anodyne 2 OST does, it’s at least as strong a work. On the visual side of things, the colors are deeper, the environments more natural, and overall it’s just amazing. Most of the game for me was just chilling out to the design while making my way through puzzles and platforms, and honestly that’s exactly what I wanted out of it.

What I wasn’t quite expecting was the narrative and the themes. Maybe it’s just because it does start a bit slow, and the demo purposefully kept some context out of view, but I was expecting this game to be kind of story-light for some reason. I prooobably should’ve thought about Analgesic’s other games and how well they integrate free-flowing gameplay and powerful, thematic writing, because that’s what was here.

Sephonie is a game (as far as I can tell) that seems to branch somewhat off of the themes of immigration explored in Melos’ game All Our Asias, but also moves into a place where it’s talking about relationships and communication just as much as it’s talking about the lived experiences of three Taiwanese scientists and their varied relationships to the USA.



All of it hits very hard and is written beautifully, but in particular there are some things deep in there about relationship strain and communication that I felt harder than the rest. There’s this theme in there about communication and connection easing the way we show the darker, more destructive parts of ourselves, with hopes that maybe the people we’re connecting with can help us to understand and rid ourselves of what’s deep in there, what we try to keep chained up. Instead, when we connect with people with the idea that they can take our pain and leave us whole, everyone can end up hurt and overwhelmed. Even when everyone wants deeper connection, sometimes that depth comes too soon, or too late, or is just too deep. Others can help us understand ourselves, but they can’t take our burden. 



Anyways I love this game and you should buy it right now

what i crave more then just ab anything in my time as an Art Appreciator is pieces that resonate so intrinsically and cohesively with some aspect of my heart that literally every single moment spent with it is full of emotion, even when not prodded by some narrative or structural crescendo. video games r often uniquely suited to having relatively long stretches of breath and quiet inbetween everything (with the understanding that the engagement of Mere Interaction is enough to keep attention), and thus of all mediums have evoked this feeling for me perhaps the most. very very few have come anywhere close to this...the sobriety of its ending (even post-epilogue, to a lesser degree) hit me like a truck because of how completely on the wavelength i was: of the game, the heroes, the island. it did all still Matter ofc, and im glad for that catharsis,,,but if im to take the pre-epilogue ending at its word, i must also make do with being separated from its beautiful protective shell that i became so intimately entwined with. simultaneously analgesic's most spellbinding game and the one that breaks the spell to the greatest effect...just ab the most convincingly brechtian indie game studio out there. this is not anodyne 3, but it is a meaningful continuation of those games, specifically the original game's structural anti-crescendo.

i feel like i could write a book on this thing...i havent even rly discussed How it got me so intwined , from its extremely deliberate attention-demanding platforming/level design (a refreshing and gutsy design choice considering Maximum Effortless Flexibility tends to be the way indie 3d platformers are going), the calm but similarly attention-demanding puzzle segments, the dizzyingly layered writing, the peak of their Dreamy Lo-fi aesthetic from anodyne 2, melos' best music to date....i dont have it all in me rn. and if im being completely honest with myself, anodyne 2 does hit me a lot more specifically and personally, and winds up a wee bit more of a powerful text as a result. but this is almost certainly Analgesic's magnum opus, as game design, as storytelling, as the Realization That The Line Between The Two Is Kinda Meaningless. a better way to live, a correct way to care.

This review contains spoilers

One of my biggest gamer eye-opening moments of the past few years was realizing that movement can, and should be fun in any game. Analgesic Productions' previous title, Anodyne 2, was one of the titles which furthered that train of thought, and made me realize that if a game has a cool, weird movement system, it allows for a whole new world of possibilities I was unaware of previously. Sephonie continues this tradition, while also presenting a whole new talking point from a two-dev-team with some of the most unique perspectives in gamedev today.

The platforming can be described in several ways, it is sometimes floaty, sometimes bouncy, sometimes heavy. It all depends on the situation, and the pace isn't even. It's weird, like I said. The world reflects this; the level design is very abstract, the shapes of what you are running on are not always round or straight. They're uncohesive. Other platforms stick out, there are bulges which you may or may not run alongside with your wallrun ability. It's prone to experimenting, and there's a lot of joy to be found there. You are constantly occupied trying to wrap your head around a path, or thinking about where an item could be hidden. Some objects are not reachable with the rules the game itself set out, but once you discover it, the hunt is on.

Some platforming puzzles can be difficult, I wish there was a way to insert your own checkpoint to expedite the process somewhat, but the game does provide a plentitude of accessibility options, all ready to be toggled at your leisure. In fact, the game even provides a way to access debug mode in the epilogue, as it is seemingly incentivized in order to obtain all the collectibles. Not required, mind you, I don't think there is a single collectible unavailable through regular gameplay, but I did find it fun exploring each stage in debug mode. There are some pretty neat secrets here and there.

As I mentioned, the devs have a very unique perspective, similar to Anodyne the topics discussed are very modern and very rare, especially in games, making for a very exciting piece of media to experience. Here's what I wrote about it while playing and making notes:

Characters' individual stages intermingle with the others' stories. Sephonie, the island, is mixing them up, creating an idea of what the human world looks like from their memories. Cool as fuck.

Importance of barriers, as it is barriers that form differences. If we become too much of something else, is there even an individual? Isn't it the different perspectives that form a person, form love, desire? There is so much nations ask of us, and yet they usually cannot return back. But sometimes, there appears a feeling of a special kind of connection to things that were made in one's own country. To the people who speak the same language. It's very similar to stories of one's own creations, thoughts, they both excite in a similar way.

It is important to understand one another, that is obvious. Talk, come up with ways to work problems out. But the barriers are a part that perhaps most don't appreciate. Sephonie does. Sephonie values what brings people together and what brings them apart. Because beauty manifests through both, even if it is tough to comprehend. Sometimes they coexist, sometimes there's more of one than the other. Kind of like the creators of this game; the two have their own unique perspectives, barriers, yet they co-create this game. Difficult to describe. Play the game. See what you think.

"In small moments, we can strike a balance. In giving and taking, in seizing and yielding. Small deaths that fold into resurgent, gasping life."

A puzzle and platforming game (not a puzzle-platformer) surrounding an unconventional sci-fi workplace drama. Three scientists confront the red tape of international research, the constraints of careerism, the material content of their lives, their relationship with each other, and also an emerging alien existential and viral threat to the planet. I had a lot of apprehension at the size of this game and the breadth of subject matter is pulling in, but this is maybe my favorite container for the Analgesic team's prose. Some of the jumps fucking blow and the camera is a constant antagonist as it always is in our current era of 3D platformers, but the accessibility options offer a wide gradient of curating difficulty such that anyone should have a good time.

Moving between methodical platforming to color match puzzle games is, at once, disorienting and perfectly connected. The emotional overture of this game is largely about the capability for adaptation all life has and the eventual ease of snapping between disparate Video Game Challenges drives this home so so well. The whole "middle class people with a lot of resources realize they can imagine and design actionable steps for a better world" will always be a weak narrative goal for me, but the kind of dilemmas of the workplace and nationalism that haunt these characters is delivered in the described gameplay loop that has linked the often overly-dreamlike prose to reality.

I've never played an Analgesic game before despite being very interested in how Anodyne 2 looks, but Sephonie stood out to me as a puzzle platformer and looking just weird enough to be up my alley.

Any fellow Canadians reading this, if you remember the "Short Circuitz" clips that used to play during commercials on YTV back in the day, this game feels and sounds like that. It really nails the bizarre, dreamscape setting of the island and the music evokes that N64 keys/synth style that is so familiar to a lot of us that it tickles that special little spot in the back of your brain - that weird little sad nostalgia zone that causes certain emotions. Like exploring an empty Super Mario 64 level or lonely Ocarina Of Time dungeon. The track that plays during the puzzle bits especially gives me that specific feeling - it feels so familiar and lonely.

This game is made exclusively by 2 people and I give them loads of credit where its due - the imaginative ways it displays its world and the creative story and writing that broadens the characters, their past, and their connection to the island, really makes this a great piece of art.

The game does feel clunky during certain platforming/wall-running sections, and I found myself failing to do things that felt like it wasn't my fault, but the game itself. You'll run at a wall at the exact angle you need to and jump onto it and it just won't work sometimes. The running itself takes some getting used to, and you'll find yourself speeding off the edge many times. BUT when it works, and when it clicks, and you're pulling off really awesome platforming and using your brain to reach nooks and crannies, it feels great. I applaud a team of 2 people that can make tricky platforming work at all.

Sephonie is a game that feels like it could use a bunch of gameplay polish to make it shine that much brighter, but at the end of the day it shines in its own special way. Truly unique and aspirational game design, presentation and writing.

Has some of the coolest movement controls I've played in a 3d platformer. The story is a tad long-winded for my taste but I enjoyed it. I really liked how honest this was about being a game, like having the discord link on the main menu, the controls settings, and the intended exploration to the tops of high structures that shows behind the level. Also the music was great and I liked the puzzle stuff.

Have you ever thought "dang, I need a game where I can do some 3D platforming, solve some grid puzzles, and feel." Well, here you go!

After playing Anodyne 1 and 2 this game was an immediate let down to me because how awkward and jank the controls are, mainly how awkward the run mechanics are because you're essentially like a bull in a china shop. This game would have much better served having a more traditional 3-D plaftformer control scheme. Really if ain't broke don't fix it and the devs trying to make this game controls more "unique" just soured the game for me, which is a shame because it seemed to have strong atmosphere from the jump. Getting a Steam refund while I can.

another analgesic banger!!!!!!! i loved the story and can't stop listening to the music, but as i'm sitting here at 3 AM basking in the glow of 100% completion, i cannot get over how tightly designed this game is. the campaign is perfectly balanced to complete without tearing your hair out, but for platforming sickos i can highly recommend the Bubble Adventure post game collectathon to really get into the nitty gritty movement / control tech. astonishingly deep for a game with effectively two inputs. i almost want to fuck around and say something incendiary like This Is The Celeste Of 3D Platformers... will need to sit on that for a bit perhaps, but goddamn this game rocked!!!

It's intelligent and spiritual. The biological snippets of each creature, their ecological place... it's all very good and heartfelt, as with the spirit telling the story. It's just too corny, too timid, the story too direct and exposition-filled.

I'm not quite sure what's wrong. It's not lacking in confidence, but in asking me if I want to turn off mechanics frequently, it feels uncommitted. Would children like this? It just doesn't work for me. Maybe I just don't like platformers, or tetris.

Another great Analgesic Productions game. I found the controls kind of finicky, but it's such an amazingly creative platformer, the game makes you string together moves in very creative ways, and the levels always felt so natural, reaching a place felt like a discovery instead of you just completing a trial.

The abstract visuals and melancholic surrealism are also in full force here, but this time there's a more concrete, more "real-world issues" story that I found really poignant. Loved to learn more about these characters, and the themes let me pondering for a while.

As always, very excited for whatever comes next.


Gameplay loop got a little tedious, especially trying to plat it in the post-game. Definitely has some cool moments, but it just didn't hit for me like Anodyne did. Ended up getting frustrated and exploiting the accessibility options to not waste 10 minutes of my time. Maybe I just got pissed bc I get only a few days off from college, so I was certainly rushing. Still really interesting and will be looking out for more of Analgesic's output.

Analgesic Productions continues to scratch a very specific artistic itch. This time in the flavour of "made during the pandemic".

Sephonie is an interesting mashup of unique 3D platforming, a hybrid tetromino/colour-match puzzle, and talking about the nature of human interaction.

Go in knowing the game is surprisingly dialogue heavy, and both gameplay types are fun. Would recommend.

jank in some really fun ways, I think I need like 2 more passes to fully get the story /pos
Maybe i'm just that good but I wish the ONYX links were harder

The story and character were fine, but I didn't like the act of playing this game, whether it was the platforming or the puzzle sections...they both felt tedious.