Totem Teller is like an interactive storybook with intentional glitches

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Totem Teller makes glitches look good. To hear developer Grinning Pickle tell it, it's a simple 2D game about guiding a curious robed individual called the Teller through a "beautifully broken" storybook-like world peppered with glitches which the Teller must resolve. Most PC gamers are no stranger to resolving glitches, but Totem Teller does things a little differently.

The Teller herself (itself?) seems to be fading in and out of reality, but the standout glitches are the shimmering, geometric oddities dotted around the game's pretty environments. It's such an odd, shaking, yet convincing effect: The rest of the world is smooth and colorful, but here's this patch of wrongness.

Glitches represent corrupted story fragments, and by healing them, you can learn more about Totem Teller's world. It's a game very proudly about "discovering things alone" and exploring "without prompts or set objectives." And while I consider myself a do-things kind of gamer, someone who wants to solve puzzles and set goals and overcome challenges, even I'm getting a bit of wanderlust just looking at Totem Teller.

Luckily Grinning Pickle says it'll be out later this year. You can learn more on its official site.

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.