Centum is a horror adventure about training up an AI, also featuring a demon catphone
Pony Island vibes
Trailered last night, Centum is "an unreliable narrative-driven adventure where everything may be a lie", according to the Steam page. Does the suggestion that everything may be a lie also apply to the suggestion itself? Is this an unreliable Steam page? Perhaps the game is secretly a cheerful Playmobile platformer with plentiful ledge-assist, rather than a horrible point-and-clicker that starts you off in a dark cell with a bunch of obviously cursed artefacts, and gets steadily worse.
I do like the looks of Centum. It's exactly my kind of "sense of place": grim and disorderly, with lowering architecture and stark shadows and objects you probably shouldn't turn your back on. It seems to be a mixture of genres and styles, akin to Daniel Mullins's Pony Island and Inscryption: there's a bit in the trailer that looks like a mode-7 racer, and some glimpses of a retro desktop interface. The art is gorgeous - check out that cat... phone... thing. All of which is spoiled a little by the marketing language, admittedly. When one of your bullet points is "Question Reality", I think you need to wind your neck in. Let the images speak for themselves! They're plenty enigmatic enough! You can always fill up the Steam page with weirdo lore in Cthulhu font.
The Steam page does have some useful info, mind you. For instance, this appears to be a game about tutoring an AI of some kind, which you might not guess from the dark Gothic fantasy appearance of certain locations. "There is no singular protagonist in Centum," the Steam page reads. "Instead, players shape the behavior of an artificial intelligence through their choices, guiding it towards different outcomes and experiences". There are multiple endings in store, "with hidden variables persisting between game runs" to encourage replay.
It's out summer 2024 on both Steam and Microsoft Store. Developer Hack The Publisher's previous works include the much merrier Dwarven Skykeep and "Korean-style" brawler Vengeance Of Mr Peppermint. If you get a kick out of the Centum trailer you might also enjoy Submachine: Legacy.