Zenith
The tower scrapes the sky above me. Baroque, infolded, its pinnacle lost in the brittle blue of the upper sky. The plain on which it stands is littered with the remains of those who attempted the climb and failed — a jumble of crumpled gliders, the exploded puffballs of abandoned balloons, rocket hulks, vaulting spears, bones.
I don't intend to fail.
There are a thousand routes, but only one choice ...
Inspired by Mirrormask, Italo Calvino's Inivisble Cities, Labyrinth, and Christopher Manson's Maze — Zenith is a lyrical and cryptic exploration of an enigmatic mystery.
Note: If you choose to record your name at the end of the game, the name you enter, and your IP address, will be recorded on my server.
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Development log
- Enter key support for name listAug 18, 2023
- Quick fix for Whale-SongAug 09, 2023
Comments
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Great game! The UI in general looks very nice, but I especially love the way the cards / floors stack up and give perspective to the climb. All the combined design decisions work together really well in showing the tower as this endless, timeless, unpredictable, perhaps even "living" place.
Thank you! The stacking of the cards/floors was what made the game come together for me. I’d played around with a more 3D block perspective sort of thing, but it was too realistic, too far from the IF part of the game. Making the cards into floors, but still cards, crystallised a lot.
Also made me go back and give significant names to the levels, hence the tarot references.
I totally missed the level names the first time I played! Also very neat and clean - love the attention to detail in things like the font size being smaller / proportional to the cards the further away you get from them.
I haven't finished playing yet, but the UI is gorgeous!
Thank you! You wouldn’t believe how much time I spent on the animation for the inventory — which was 100% unnecessary :) I just had this idea of it spreading out, and was determined to make it happen!
An entertaining and engaging story, with great (re)play value and stylish prose. I very much enjoyed the
rideclimb !It reminded me of La Tour by Schuiten and Peeters a comic I hold in great esteem.
The biggest influences were probably Italo Calvino’s Invisible Cities, and the movie Mirrormask. Neither of them feature a tower, but they are definitely explorations through endless or confusing spaces.
What a gorgeous game! A very surreal and beautiful setting that reminded me fondly of the types of adventures stories I read when I was younger. The way the story cards stacked on top of each other as you progress was genius! Well done!