Semblance review – Mighty morphin’ power platformer

It’s taken developer Nyamakop (Ben Myres and Cukia Kimani) the better part of three years to bring Semblance from university project to full blown game and now that it’s here, the pair can be deservedly proud of it.

While it has its flaws, Semblance is a genuinely unique take on the platform genre, which may explain why it feels so at home on the Nintendo Switch.

What sets Semblance apart from most platformers is its mechanic with which players are able to morph certain surfaces in the world around their avatar.

It’s a central conceit that starts out with the player using it very simply – creating platforms or nooks for their little squishy avatar to navigate up sheer walls or over deadly traps – and then the developers start adding new features and puzzles that take it in a different direction.

Beyond the first simple level – or ‘world’ as it’s tagged here – players will use Semblance’s world-bending mechanics to block lasers, turn the ground beneath them into a hidey-hole to avoid enemies, create temporary trampolines and more. The morphing mechanic even extends to the player’s avatar, who can change its shape to slip though small gaps or jump up narrow chutes.

Players are also armed with a double-jump – which allows them more vertical reach and the option to bang into surfaces around them, morphing the terrain – and the ability to reset their environment at the touch of a button.

Between these central mechanics, Nyamakop have created a challenging smorgasbord of puzzle, but one that’s never too frustrating. In a way, Semblance is rather reminiscent of the Portal series of games; you don’t have to be a genius to figure out the puzzles it contains, but you feel like one when you do.

The game tells a story… of sorts. As has been mentioned players take on the role of a squishy little chap with bug-eyes who wanders through a world that looks like a play-dough forest. Much of the landscape is covered in green thorns – which are fatal if stepped on – and the game’s protagonist is charged with clearing them away.

The way they do this is to hop into a level (represented by a tree) and solve the series of puzzles they find. Once they’ve done this in the different levels, the ‘world’ (the level hub) is cleared and they can move onto the next one. Players can’t progress to a new world until they’ve cleared all the levels it contains, but they can tackle the levels in an open-ended fashion.

This is rather useful, since if one gets stuck on a particular puzzle, they can head to another level that may give them an idea of how to get past it.

Semblance also deserves a couple of bows for its presentation; visually it looks rather close to World Of Goo and Super Meat Boy, but with a more fluid quality and gentler colour tones. The soundtrack is a soothing, sometimes eerie backdrop, which fits because it casts an almost Zen-like spell over the player.

Semblance could stand to be longer. It clocks in at just three hours and even replaying it and trying out different approaches to some puzzles doesn’t really extend its length. Furthermore, there are times when the controls don’t feel quite as precise as they should do.

But that having been said, this is a game well worth investing in. Unique, compelling and heaps of fun to play, Nyamakop’s first commercial game deserves to be a success.

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★★★★☆