There was a PAX showcase on Steam last week and I managed to catch it last minute and download a few demos. Totally last minute but I managed to play a game about hope and finding your worth through the power of puzzle-solving.
Epiphany City is on deck.
Epiphany City is a 2D puzzle adventure brought to us by David Elliot, Cameron Ladjevardi and published by Big Shield Games. The best we have on a release date is Early 2022.
Because the game starts off in an area that is mostly out of context, the story can be pieced together. You control Lily, a girl with an immense amount of hopelessness and the power to rearrange objects. The demo starts with Lily being dropped off at a museum to see a hero named Superb Man. Superb Man is supposed to be the catalyst of change for Lily but it is cut short. Lily has a fight with a woman named Rose and falls into a painting. She stumbles upon a scroll that foretells the emergence of a hero that will stop some evil.
She “rewords it.”
SHE IS NOW THE HERO OF THE STORY, NOT SUPERB MAN.
Then the evil force comes into the museum and trashes the place, Lily has an epiphany about who she wants to be and the demo ends.
As noted before, Lily can rearrange objects and that translates into the puzzles the game offers up. The puzzles from the demo are actually quite cheeky, especially towards the end of the demo, they really make you think. The museum really adds a natural flow of easy to difficult puzzles.
Controls are pretty simple. Lily moves and Lily can rearrange certain aspects of the world. Being able to rotate a chair so that the museum security can sit is key to getting to the next area.
The game is cute and colorful, especially in the second half.
Epiphany City is a really cute game, I liked it. The animations are pretty stiff but overall the experience was fun. The natural difficulty progression of puzzles really is good and shows that when the game releases that it will have some good ones.
The link for the demo is at the top, just go play it.
Grinds and Games 