Epiphany City

Cautious recommendation. This reminds me of something you'd get in a shareware collection or play on Newgrounds 15 years ago. The core conceit of manipulating the environment with picture frames is a very cool idea. Several of the puzzles were very creative and fun, especially the math ones in the park. The puzzles are sandwiched, though, by a long intro story dump and a long series of quick-time events, leaving me just a little unsatisfied with the amount of puzzles. I would have loved for the intro backstory to be done through some easier puzzles to get players acclimated to the game, and the fight sequences to be some harder puzzles, since [spoiler]the point of the prophecy is supposedly that it accentuates one's inherent abilities, making Lily's sudden talent for Chun-Li kicks and Kamehamehas appear out of nowhere[/spoiler]. The writing is a mixed bag. The game opens with a very long sequence consisting of a pastiche of Superman mocking wealth inequality and a very realistic and sardonic depiction of Lily's struggles. Then in the actual game, the surroundings oscillate between wacky side character exploits and a fantastical war against evil. The wild blend of tones is rather jarring. I found it hard to know what kind of emotions the writing was cueing me towards at any given moment. The actual diction and flow of the writing is well done. The art is pretty good, too, especially the parodies of online platforms in the intro. I think this is a great pickup on sale to spend an evening, but I don't know that there's enough puzzles for the full asking price.

Hmm, I suppose overall the puzzles weren't excessively hard, and maybe there were one or two of them where I never really "figured them out" in that sense but rather just stumbled onto the solution by accident trying random stuff and then afterwards even after seeing what I did had no idea what the logic behind the solution was even supposed to be, but the point is I DID stumble onto it, so that's good, and that was only a minority of cases and most of the puzzles made sense, but my point is I only ever got stuck in the game one time (Well, technically twice, but the second time the problem was actually a bug and I had solved the puzzle correctly but the game simply failed to register it as solved, and naturally this was on a puzzle where it was heavily implied you needed to think outside the box to complete it, and so I simply assumed that must not have been the intended unorthodox solution, then, and stumbled around looking for some other solution that wasn't there for an extended period, and the problem only resolved itself when I exited the game and started it up again, but my point is since that was a bug and not a puzzle design problem, I'm not counting it here), and even then that wasn't on a "puzzle" per se but you can only walk from room to room at certain access points and one of them was partly obscured and my mind simply did not register it as an access point even when looking right at it, and so my point is, the puzzles were never [i]too[/i] hard, and some of them hit that sweet spot where you think about it for a few minutes and the have that "ah ha!" moment, so that was neat. Also, honestly, I was really really worried based on how the game started that it was going to sink into just a bunch of whiny angsty stuff the whole way through and just be really annoying to play, but, hey, it didn't, and at no point did it feel like the devs were trying to force some allegedly deep message about mental health down my throat or something, so that was nice. Also, I did kind of like the part near the end around 90% to 95% of the way through the game, say, where everything escalates and stuff starting from when [spoiler]Superb Man turns evil,[/spoiler] but then 95% to 100% just felt off. Personally I feel they were undermining half the point of the game by having [spoiler]your character suddenly get physically stronger and go around kicking butt,[/spoiler] and weren't we supposed to not need that sort of thing? What about what makes us special and unique and stuff? Didn't we say at the start of the game that [spoiler]you don't get new abilities but we just enhance the abilities you already have? Our hero was very specifically not supposed to be big and strong like Superb Man, and it makes no sense for her to suddenly be able to fight him head on. She should have gained the ability to defeat him through art or something, I don't know.[/spoiler] Also, personally I have no idea how it's supposed to work out if [spoiler]we let Superb Man live at the end,[/spoiler] and it's not like any [spoiler]jail[/spoiler] on Earth can [spoiler]hold him.[/spoiler] Is he expected to just willingly [spoiler]stay locked up[/spoiler] because if he doesn't our hero will [spoiler]hunt him down and beat him up again?[/spoiler] It sounds like a huge pain to have do that constantly, honestly. Also, maybe it's just me, but I was kind of left worried about what's going to happen to [spoiler]the main bad guy's son, and his dad is dead now, I don't think any mention was ever made of his mom during the game but I would be HEAVILY surprised if she was just at the office or something knowing full well that her husband and son were off being supervillains and not having a problem with that, so I can only assume she's out of the picture and the kid has nowhere really to go,[/spoiler] but I guess we don't worry about that but instead we all just go off and eat ice cream at the end of the game instead? Okay, then. Anyway, most of that's not really important and the plot of the game isn't supposed to be all deep and stuff but it's just a fun little story to have fun with so maybe I shouldn't think about it it too deeply, so that's not really the problem here or the reason I'm giving this a thumbs down, and the actual reason for that is, well, I keep on saying "Oh, this part of the game was nice" or it was "neat" or whatever, and that's the thing is that this game is neat, it's okay, it's not bad, it's whatever you want to call it, but in the end ten years from now I'm not going to remember it existed, and it's just not good enough for me to recommend, and would I recommend [i]against[/i] this game? No, but I wouldn't recommend [i]for[/i] it (or however you say that grammatically) either.

This game is painfully underrated! The artstyle is so cute and charming, the story has a really nice message to it and is pretty well executed. But the real star is the gameplay! The gimmick seemed really interesting to me and the puzzles make great use of the concept! I felt really clever solving them and none of them felt like too big of leaps in logic to figure out! And there is an incredibly clever moment near the end that I think back to a lot! If you are considering giving this one a try, please do. The game needs more love!

I only wish it were longer. This is a very cute game with very fun gameplay :)

Easy game, bad story that can't be skipped. It awright.

Muito divertido, gostei!

Nice little game. Its a bit weird and rough but this makes it unique. Game is ~3 hours long.

Entretenido juego de puzles original en el que tienes que usar partes de imágenes para resolverlos. Y está en castellano.

Going through the Discovery Queue one can find all sorts of games. Arcade games, RPGs, shooters, maybe more experimental stuff that you remember having bought at some point though have no recollection of when it was. This was my case with this game which probably had interested me with its trailer showing off some of its mechanics that I wanted to see in action for myself. Hence I went ahead and gave it a go. Let’s see how that went. Epiphany City is an adventure sokoban where you go around as Lily and interact with the environment using your artistic powers which the story doesn’t take long to explain. Presenting itself through simple drawings much like in newspaper comic strips, it features many gags and humour that may definitely not be to the taste of everyone by their self deprecating or goofy manner but certainly made me chuckle more than once. Furthermore, said gags can comprise out of the ordinary obstacles that can be overcome in a limited and guided though also creative way. At least, that’s the case throughout most of the game’s playtime. Unfortunately, behind that non serious facade the narrative presents a couple of serious in tone moments that come as a shift from the general gameplay. That wouldn't be an issue if it was well paced through a long enough story so that the character's struggles can be set in little by little. However, considering the game can be beaten in a couple of hours and by the latter half the mechanics change, in conclusion comes in a rush, leaving the player with an empty sensation regarding how certain events came to be. Probably due to it being the studio's first game, lack of budget or just a desire for it to not overstay its welcome, there’s the feeling after watching the credits that at some point there could have been a better way to go about it. Even with that in mind, I can't say my experience wasn't a fulfilling one considering I had no expectations to begin with. Also, for a first game this is not short of impressive. Hopefully the developers are doing well enough on their next venture.