

Ekphrasis
Ryan Perreault · 2024 · Puzzle, 2D, Minimalist, Story Rich, Singleplayer
PC
Positive90% · 10
This game is free to play. Get it on Steam →
Screenshots
About Ekphrasis
Five mysterious beings have gathered to create an archive that contains all forms of knowledge. As the primary archivist, converse with each entity to learn from their discoveries, and collect their findings to complete the archive. Decide whether to uncover their secrets and seek out their intentions.
Key features:



Key features:
- Unique puzzle design
- Branching, choice-based narrative
- Minimalist art-style and soundtrack




What Steam players say
Recent verbatim reviews from Steam — separate from playze.io community reviews below.
Imagine you're looking at a red canvas. Just a piece of cloth stretched on a wooden frame, completely covered with red oil paint. Now, look at it. What do you [i]actually[/i] see? Yeah, your rational mind will say "a piece of cloth covered with red oil paint". But a part of you will see... a sea of blood? A sunset? A tomato? Passion? Suffering? Whatever. Something. And none of these answers is more correct than the other, and everyone will have their own. And the feelings the answer will evoke in you - whether that's boredom, nostalgia, fear, or anything really - that is what the purpose of art is. Or at least one of the purposes... if art can even be said to have a purpose. Anyway. Ekphrasis - the game - is a poem; told in the language of video games. But it doesn't really tell you that this is what it is. I adore such artworks (another such game is [url=https://store.steampowered.com/app/325210/Arctico/]Arctico[/url]) - but these tend to be hated by the general gaming public, because they aren't very good at being games. Or what we have accepted the definition of a game is, at least. It was an emotional journey, culminating in a very strange experience that I cannot even begin…12 found this helpful
⠀8 found this helpful
"Ekphrasis" is a simple, minimalist puzzle game that might as well have been done in a web browser. At least it's presented nicely? But we must remember one of the axioms of PC gaming... Steam is not here to compete with Firefox and Chrome. Indeed, the developer might have made some money from ad impressions if they'd have stuck this up as a website. But nope, here on Steam for some reason. The puzzles are varied, but still generally simple stuff like picture tiles, word puzzles, simple programming puzzles and so on... certainly a wide variety, but is any of it better than what you could get browsing puzzle games on the web? Nope. This game features very lacklustre minimalist "art" for graphics instead of anything remotely contemporary. I'm sure the "developer" thought this would come across as "artistic", but it doesn't, it comes across as "really lazy". People don't spend thousands on gaming rigs with the latest NVidia and AMD graphics cards to look at static 2D images that could be part of a website. Not every "free" game really is. There's often MTX, or content locked behind DLC, or donations being requested, or any other number of things that could mislead gamers, b…2 found this helpful
Working as an archivist introduces you to a different side of art and history. But I dont know what I was doing2 found this helpful
On the first glance, I absolutely love the art style of the game, the way the characters speak and the whole vibe. Its well produced and just the way the UI looks and how the game portrays itself, its very intriguing, even tho I am way too stupid to understand what the hell im doing1 found this helpful
[h3] I'm currently doing a challenge to play through a free game in every single category on steam. [/h3] Game: 6 / 447 [b] Category: Science [/b] I'm too dumb for this game. But also... capitalize your sentences.
Community reviews
—
0 reviews
Sign in to write a review.
No reviews yet. Be the first to review this game.











