Volvox
Release date: Dec 7, 2015
Developers: Neotenia
Publishers: Neotenia
Genres: Indie
Categories: Single-player, Steam Achievements, Steam Trading Cards, Partial Controller Support, Steam Cloud, Family Sharing
Supported languages: English, French, Italian, German, Spanish - Spain

The Trimoebas are unicellular animals that populate the primordial soup and move by rolling. Their dream is to build the first multicellular creatures. To succeed in creating order from chaos, they will have to dig tunnels, build towers, and construct bridges — having no tools but their triangular bodies and their special abilities! Using just 7 of these abilities, Volvox offers 250 hand-drawn levels, for about 60 hours of play, and that's without counting achievements and stats! This variety of situations is possible thanks to the versatile main mechanic, inspired by the physical phenomenon of 'rolling without slipping', the relationship between the path traveled by a body — in this case a Trimoeba! — and its rotation. Level surfaces and Trimoebas influence each other, resulting in intricate puzzles and enigmatic challenges. Volvox's difficulty escalates quickly, but it does not require fast response times or specialized experience. It is difficult because almost no one is used to thinking in terms of rotating triangles: for this reason, both hardcore and casual players can find it interesting and challenging. Upon completing the game for the first time, a new advanced mode will be unlocked to test your skills in a different way. Volvox is not just a traditional puzzle game, as it is also designed as mental flexibility training, encouraging the player to continuously find new ways to use the resources available, to contrast the phenomenon of 'functional fixedness'. Volvox is a game richly filled with triangles, eyes, and curls, which appear constantly in various forms in characters, controls, and backgrounds, for a strongly organic aesthetic. The game's visual style comes from watercolor painting, and this art style consciously alludes to cellular diffusion phenomena. In addition to the advanced mode mentioned above, completing the game for the first time unlocks new options to change the backgrounds in 16 variants, altering your perception of Volvox while experimenting with the second mode. The sound effects and music were produced by making extensive use of a unique instrument called a 'hang'. The hang is a recent invention, lacking previous cultural connections, perfect to portray a time before time: the time of life's beginning. The themes of birth and reproduction are interlaced with the game's primary campaign, presenting a strong message of love for life and celebrating life's beauty in all its shapes, down to the simplest worm. Presskit()

Press reviews: “Does that sound more complicated? Good, because that’s the reality. It’s often great, yet often: AAARRGGHHH! But only for as long as you Don’t Get It. This will be plentiful, granted, but when you do it’s a delight and the game’s art style is a joy to stare at as you get baffled again and again and again.” Rock, Paper, Shotgun “Neotenia’s lead designer, Sumero Lira, has successfully squeezed every conceivable puzzle task out of each and every one of the mechanics introduced in Volvox, including every challenge I could imagine and many I never would have expected.” The Gemsbok