Become a wolfgirl with a fliphone and explore brutalist, liminal dreamscapes in nophenia

There's a dedicated howl fastener 'n' all

I recognize wherefore walking sims aren't truly a happening immoderate more. Some of the earliest large names similar Gone Home, Dear Esther, and arguably The Stanley Parable each came astatine a clip wherever indie games were increasing successful popularity, but were inactive predominantly 2D. Something elemental similar a walking sim is evidently rather resourceful compared to modern AAA games, but present the indie country has blown up to the constituent wherever mechanics-first genres similar roguelikes are dominating. Except I similar walking sims! So erstwhile a crippled similar nophenia, a walking sim wherever you're a wolfgirl with a flip telephone exploring antithetic imagination worlds, shows up, I'm going to wage attention.

There is simply a existent boldness to nophenia's precise elemental Steam page. "There is… nary game," the astir conception explains. "You locomotion astir and research brutalist but besides dream-like environments." Aside from that, it explains that determination are dedicated "sit" and "howl" buttons due to the fact that "wolfgirls are ace cool" (wolfgirls are ace cool), and lists retired the controls. Mysterious…

Luckily, there's a (very short, I should note) demo to effort out. It truly is arsenic elemental arsenic it describes, you tin locomotion oregon tally around, jump, but chiefly you're taking successful the sights. And these sights are rather lonely. There's nary 1 other around, isolated from successful 1 imagination wherever determination is an infinitely passing train. In different dream, umbrellas strewn crossed a flooded roadworthy connote passersby. You fto retired a howl, lone for it to not beryllium reciprocated. All you tin bash is property forward, much truthful figuratively, moving from 1 imagination to the next, taking each the clip you privation successful each of them, incapable to instrumentality to the erstwhile one.

I similar the flip telephone intermission paper too. There's a prime of longing successful the demo for immoderate benignant of quiet, a consciousness of integer escape. It doesn't consciousness similar an mishap that you commencement successful a messy chamber with a boarded up door, the main root of airy coming from a computer, the existent root of each evil successful this world. There's a photograph mode too, and portion aesthetically you're not utilizing your flip phone, that's evidently the vibe, with the screenshots it produces outputting astatine a measly but nostalgic 640x480p.

Everything nophenia has going for it makes a beardown statement for the worth of walking sims. They're a genre that forces america to instrumentality our time, dilatory down a little, enactment with our thoughts, and that seems to travel done thematically present arsenic well.

What different dreams nophenia mightiness hold, I look guardant to seeing whenever it arrives successful aboriginal 2026. In the meantime, you tin wishlist it connected Steam here.