Malleable platformer Semblance squidges out July 24th
Soft as nails
I don't want to sully the wonderfully malleable world of Semblance with vulgarity, as tempting as this next line makes it to. Semblance is a platformer that invites you to "explore a world where the default is soft, where the property of 'hardness' doesn't exist" - not in your body, nor the platforms you jump upon. It's part puzzler and part jumper, where the latter can only happen once you've squidged the world into the right shape. It comes out July 24th, and the trailer below demonstrates the big idea wonderfully.
Note how, at least based on that trailer, dying seems to only set you back to the start of the screen. Thank Christ.
I like the ghoulish way those hazards are made up of crystallised-but-very-much-alive creatures that look like you. The world is bright but full of terrors.
It turns out that bit of the blurb I quoted earlier was fibbing a bit, as hardness does exist - in the form of an alien invader. As the blurb explains, your job is to "beat back the strange, crystalline infection of hard material by freeing the world's life essences and uncover the dark cause for its appearance". So, swap out Fe's robots for crystals and its singing for squidging, and you've basically got the same game.
I'm using the launch date (July 24th, remember) as the impetus I apparently need to finish Celeste. I don't want to feel guilty about buying TWO intriguing platformers then abandoning them when I get stuck, though the game lets you "move between puzzles as you wish, never forcing you to find a solution in order to progress and enabling you to come back later". I know it's lying again and I'll need to find some solutions in order to progress, but I appreciate the reassurance nonetheless.
Here's the Steam page, in case you want to wishlist it or summat.