Squish levels until they work in playdough puzzle-platformer Semblance

Semblance is a pretty puzzle-platformer where your character—an adorable blobby thing named Squish—and everything else is made of soft, squishable dough. Well, everything except for the parts of the world that have been infected by horrible crystals that feed off the world's softness. Anyone who played with playdough as a kid can tell you that nothing kills the fun like hard, dry dough, to say nothing of horrible crystals, which is why ol' Squish needs to save the day by solving some inventive puzzles. 

This beautiful, moldable world is Semblance's central and most intriguing idea. By ramming and pounding soft platforms, Squish can literally shape the world around him, raising and contorting platforms to fit the situation. You can force dough upward to block a harmful laser or create a bridge above some deadly crystals, or stretch a platform out like a rubber-band and then reset it to use it as a slingshot. It's a clever, intuitive system that teaches you to think differently and, together with Squish's dash, gives every puzzle multiple solutions that test your reflexes as well as your brain. 

I should know, I played a bit of Semblance at GDC. I didn't play much, but what I did play was more than enough to embed the game in my memory, which is pretty impressive given the conditions, and indeed the condition, in which I played it. 

There I was, weary, jet-lagged and wandering aimlessly through a crowded, noisy indie event, when Ben Myres, co-founder of Semblance developer Nyamakop, tapped me on the shoulder. 

"You look lost," he said. He'd never been more right. "You look like you need a game," he continued. Again, he was dead-on. "You look like you need this shit right here," he said, gesturing to Semblance's demo. And I'll be damned if he wasn't right. 

Semblance is both a clever toy to play with and a fiendish puzzle to solve, and I look forward to playing more of it when it releases later this year. 

Austin Wood
Staff writer, GamesRadar

Austin freelanced for PC Gamer, Eurogamer, IGN, Sports Illustrated, and more while finishing his journalism degree, and has been a full-time writer at PC Gamer's sister publication GamesRadar+ since 2019. They've yet to realize that his position as a staff writer is just a cover-up for his career-spanning Destiny column, and he's kept the ruse going with a focus on news, the occasional feature, and as much Genshin Impact as he can get away with.

Latest in Puzzle
An image of a golden first place award from Geoguessr
'We're actually getting GeoGuessr on Steam before GTA 6': the Google Street View puzzler arrives on Valve's platform this April
World of Goo 2 a giant octopus-worm spits out a structure of goo upon which other goo is flowing.
After launching as an Epic Store exclusive, World of Goo 2 dribbles onto Steam this spring: 'We’re grateful to Epic for funding development of the game'
Wordle today puzzle on a smartphone
Today's Wordle answer for Wednesday, March 26
Today's Wordle being played on a phone
Today's Wordle answer for Tuesday, March 25
Wordle answers
Today's Wordle answer for Monday, March 24
A sign reads "HATRED IS POWER"
A demo for a lost videogame based on George Orwell's 1984 has emerged from the memory hole
Latest in News
An Enshrouded player in a recreation of Erebor from The Lord of the Rings
Kings under the Mountain! 33 Enshrouded players spent 10,000 hours to recreate this iconic location from The Lord of the Rings
A mech awakens.
Mecha Break developer is considering unlocking all mechs following open beta feedback
Lara Croft Unified Art
Tomb Raider developer Crystal Dynamics lays off 17 employees 'to better align our current business needs and the studio's future success'
A long bendy arm stealing money from people in a subway car
'You're a very long arm. You steal things. It's a comedy game,' explains developer of comedy game where you steal things with a very long arm
The heroes are attacked by monsters
Pillars of Eternity is getting turn-based combat to mark its 10th anniversary, and that means PC Gamer editors will soon be arguing about combat mechanics again
Image of Ronaldo from Fatal Fury: City of the Wolves trailer
It doesn't really make sense that soccer star Ronaldo is now a Fatal Fury character, but if you follow the money you can see how it happened