A problem that games have, I find, is that it’s quite hard for them to inspire a sense of wonder. The kind of thing that old movies, before CGI, that would make you think, “how did they do that?” But games are all CGI, spiritually anyway, so it’s a bit harder for the craft itself to truly wow in terms of not being able to comprehend how something works. However! I felt that today when I saw the reveal trailer for Uncanyon, a puzzle game from the devs behind Maquette set in the seam between unparallel realities where the very shape of the world is constantly in flux.
In Uncanyon, which also happens to be the name of the setting of the game, you play as Sonia, a “young woman who tumbles into this new and fantastical world, where hills breathe, trees change color, and the land itself never stands still,” as the game’s Steam page explains. It’s that last part about the land never staying still that gave me pause when watching the reveal trailer, that wanted me to ask how it was made. The puzzles, in part, appear to involve changing the very shape of the world, parts of it morphing from one vibe to another almost seamlessly.
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It’s this transition that befuddled me, in the way you get confused for a while when watching someone cutting up a chocolate bar and convincing you there’s suddenly more of it. It’s delightful! I’m sure there’s a real, technical explanation to all of it, the surreality of it all just caught me off guard in a way I’ve been craving for a while. How the puzzles themselves work isn’t entirely clear, it was a short trailer, but from what I gather it involves things like timing the movement of rolling barrels just right to shape the land to your advantage.
A tidbit of combat could be seen too, which is less interesting to me. Uncanyon is described as “puzzle-first,” so I suppose that means action-second. Hopefully we won’t have to do all that much of that, I’d rather just see the ways the world twists and contorts in reaction to my puzzle solving. There’s no exact release date attached to Uncanyon just yet, but it is due out sometime in 2027. You can wishlist it on Steam here.