Take me to Phoenix Springs.
While playing, I couldn’t reach the remote desert oasis and its mysterious community of misfits. Phoenix Springs demo at Summer Game Fest, but after a brief stint in the neo-noir world of Iris Dormer, I’m desperate to get there. I want to find out what happened to Iris’s brother, a man I’ve only heard about in strange, sad tales. I want to hear Iris’s articulate voice in my ear, providing brutal context for every scene. I’m ready to get lost in the game’s sickly green shadows again. I am very curious to find out what awaits me in the desert. take me back
Phoenix Springs is a point-and-click detective game starring reporter Iris Dormer as she searches for her estranged brother Leo. His search eventually leads him beyond the city’s soaring skyscrapers and across the desert to an oasis community called Phoenix Springs. Using an inventory of mental notes, Iris explores the area and its people, gathering ideas instead of physical objects as clues.
The Summer Game Fest demo covered early stages of the game with Iris on a train and in the city, teasing the oddities that could only be lurking in the desert community of Phoenix Springs. Every scene in the game is a work of art, and Iris is its historian, uncovering relationship themes and storylines as she reads documents and receives information from strangers. In any situation, he has three options for interaction: talk, look, use.
Iris’ mental inventory fills with names, dates, places, and dark moments as she opens boxes, searches the net, and tries to talk to her brother’s former neighbors. Leo’s last address is a boarded-up building abandoned by the landlords in poor repair, where he encounters the people left behind. A young man does a plant dance with some kind of electronic box, and a middle-aged man lies unconscious on a shipping container. They are called orphans and none of them are ready to talk. On the other side of the building, there is a separate voice on the intercom that fills Iris’s inventory with words, sharing the history of the area. Choosing an idea allows Iris to explore her surroundings with this information, narrowing her focus and often uncovering solutions. It’s a clean and familiar exploration mechanic presented in a pretty cool format.
Phoenix Springs it’s beautiful. Surely. His canvases are eerie – dark green backgrounds streaked with deeper shadows, while yellows, reds and blues define the edges of important sets. The inventory appears as a bright white screen with black text, individual ideas separated by subtle thought bubbles. The whole experience has a papery sheen, as if it’s an interactive interpretation of a mid-century science fiction novel.
Where the game lacks color, Iris makes up for it through narration, and her verbal palette is as sharp as the game’s visuals. He speaks with a pompous and heightened nihilism that would feel right at home in an Orson Welles detective noir. His voice is comforting and foreboding, and it’s a pleasant, almost constant companion in the demo.
In the middle of a busy trade show full of exciting games, I wanted to keep playing Phoenix Springsand that’s about the highest praise I can give. Phoenix Springs It feels completely unique. this Coming to Steam Designed and published by London-based art collective Calligram Studio on September 16.
Find out all the news from Summer Game Fest 2024 here!
