10 years in the making, Amanita Design’s latest gem Phonopolis launched during the week! A game constructed entirely from cardboard, it’s a phenomenal artistic achievement.
It also tells a clever, funny dystopian story alongside the indie dev’s familiar mix of abstract puzzle solving. Oh, plus a new game from this studio means a new soundtrack from composer Floex. Lots to be happy about here!
Puzzles and Punishment in Phonopolis
Okay, this is out now but currently only on Epic Games, GOG, and Steam (as in, it’s PC only).
In classic Amanita style, this is a point and click adventure game with plenty of abstract/logic puzzles. Players take control of Felix who is a young binman in the city of Phonopolis. As the studio explains in a press release:
“In contrast to the majority of Amanita Design’s previous efforts, tackles more relatable, real-world themes and topics, focusing on manipulation and individualism, but still keeping the overall experience playful and light-hearted. Players will take on the role of Felix, a thoughtful young man who, along with his fellow citizens, faces the imminent threat of falling under the control of the dystopian city’s authoritarian Leader once and for all, effectively losing their humanity.”
By accident, Felix discovers his society is under threat and there’s a subversive underground movement to maintain personal autonomy. Pertinent themes then! Oh, yes.
As Felix goes on to highlight the inherent nature of totalitarian systems. The initial promised ideal of a perfect, pure society, inevitably followed by absurdity and dysfunction.
This is all expressed in an avant-garde style artistic extravaganza. A vibrant 3D world of cardboard, pieced meticulously together through cut-outs, painting, and digitisation. The goal was to make Phonopolis a hand-crafted world and Amanita has achieved that in empathic fashion.
Cardboard Constructivism
The art styles used are angle heavy (kind of like Wassily Kandinsky styled abstractions) and falls under:
- Constructivism
- Futurism
- Suprematism
Constructivism is the most apparent (for us, anyway) and you can see the style stamped all over the main marketing branding for the game.
Just compare it to this 1919 Bolshevik lithographic piece Beat the Whites with the Red Wedge (Клином красным бей белых!, Klinom krasnym bey belykh!) by Russian artist El Lissitzky.
If you buy the soundtrack on Steam, you get a free artbook. Lissitzky is referenced directly with one of his quotes:
“The task of the artist is to construct a new order of life.”
Then we see plenty of Amanita angles, so reminiscent of Soviet-era sharpness and attempted order.
Again, every single thing in the game was constructed with cardboard. In traditional point and click fashion you guide Felix around areas, resolve issues, and move the story along. This thing really needs to be seen in motion, it’s an incredible artistic achievement.
Due to the extensive effort of piecing the game together, there’s only about 2-to-3 hours of gameplay here. That may bother some gamers, but it didn’t with us. We appreciate the achievement and wanted to play it all over again.
Phonopolis is clever, funny, and so weirdly captivating.
Absurd humour is a big part of the experience. The little intricacies of the the (often slapstick, other times satirical) jokes can be missed easily. So, pay attention, citizen!
But given the nature of Professional Moron here and our lampooning of social structures and capitalism (you might have noticed we’re not a fan of the latter), Phonopolis delivers the absurdity in delightful spades of visual gags.
Oh, and let’s not forget the cardboard.
Something we see a lot of anyway as our cat, Susan, has an obsession with the stuff. Good to see it all in game form. It’s similar to Petums’ beautiful game Papetura (2021), which was made of paper and took the indie developer six years to put together. It also features a fantastic Floex soundtrack.
On that note!!! Here we have another magnificent Floex soundtrack in Phonopolis. It’s over an hour of new music from the Czech composer and it delivers his trademark catchy hooks and folktronica excellence.
Amanita Design has done it again here, crafting a mini-masterpiece that’s quite the artistic achievement. Anyone who still sneers at video games and thinks they’re “for kids” needs to play something like this, as there’s no denying its artistic brilliance.
Hey ho, the abstract nature of the puzzle solving won’t be for everyone
Yet if you’ve not played an Amanita game before, now is the time to put aside that grievous error and embrace the world of Phonopolis.
The Production of Phonopolis
The day before the game released, Amanita Design launched a full documentary on YouTube about the game’s lengthy production cycle. If you’re interested in game design, it’s well worth a watch.
It’s not in English, but you can turn the subtitles on (CC) for insights.
The studio’s last full title was the surreal horror romp Happy Game back in 2021. The concept for Phonopolis was actually by another studio (apparently called Hammeware, who we can find no information about online).
Jakub Dvorský (founder of Amanita Design) saw the game and quickly moved to get it in his development. The team began work on it in 2016, but didn’t announce it until May 2022.
Since then, fans have simply had to wait, wait, and wait some more. It’s been well worth it, though, as this is arguably the best thing the indie dev has ever done. It’s not to be missed.
