I’m a little bit behind on this one—it launched last week—but Phonopolis, the new game from Amanita Design, is out, and as a longtime fan of the studio I am very pleased to say that so far, it’s pretty great.
I say “so far” because I haven’t yet finished Phonopolis, and it’s always possible that things will go seriously wrong in the second half. I doubt very much that’s going to happen, but best to be clear about these things.
So far, though, Phonopolis shaping up to be another brilliant Amanta adventure, telling the tale of a hapless lad named Felix who, quite by accident, ends up on the wrong side of a totalitarian regime that’s one step away from enslaving the minds of the people by stripping them of their humanity entirely through the power of the Absolute Tone.
It’s silly and slapstick, as Amanita games generally are: The regime enforcers are more Keystone Kops than KGB, and there’s no real fail state for any of the puzzles: During a prison break sequence, for instance (and yes, I went to prison), running afoul of a roaming spotlight triggers a klaxon and sends Felix scurrying for cover, but otherwise there’s no real penalty—puzzle progress doesn’t even reset.
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The puzzles in Phonopolis (again, so far) are pretty straightforward, and often feel more like interactive toys than adventure game-style brain teasers. In another segment aboard a big float in a parade for The Leader, I escaped the cops (and yes, I was running from the cops) by dicking around with various switches and buttons. But while escape was the goal, the fun—much like Amanita’s extremely funny comedy romp Chuchel—was mostly in just seeing what everything did.
Amanita says Phonopolis is “loosely inspired by the works of Karel Čapek and George Orwell,” and the game is not exactly subtle in that regard. Class is strictly enforced in the world of Phonopolis, the population is kept docile (and relentlessly monitored) by telescreens, wrongthink is ruthlessly punished, and the whole thing is shot through with the presence of The Leader, a near-mythical Big Brother figure to whom everyone owes everything.
It’s reflected in the game’s visual style, too:
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Music plays a central role in Phonopolis, as it does in pretty much all Amanita games. But it’s of particular significance in this one, a game in which music is all but forgotten, and all thought is drowned out by blaring loudspeakers. The soundtrack, by longtime Amanita Design composer Tomáš Dvořák (aka Floex), is another banger (yes, so far): A gentle, dreamy lullaby that stands in sharp contrast to the ugly cacophony of the game world itself.
The one thing that puts me off Phonopolis just a little bit is that it’s kind of on the nose right now. Machinarium is set in a pretty rough town and Botanicula is literally about finding a new home after the old one is annihilated, but neither of those games feel as grim or unhappy as Phonopolis. That’s more a reflection of the times in which we live than anything inherent in the game itself, and could even be taken as a tribute to Amanita’s success in engendering the sort of world it aims to depict. But it also leaves Phonopolis ever so slightly less joyous than many of its predecessors. (Yes, again, and for the last time, so far. Maybe a happy ending will turn me around on that.)
Phonopolis is available now on Steam, Epic, and GOG for $22.49/£18/€19.79, or slightly more for a collector’s edition that includes a digital art book and soundtrack. (You do you, but when it comes to Amanita Design games, I always recommend going for the soundtrack.) If you’d like to sample the goods first, a Phonopolis demo is also available on Steam.
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