Games are communication: a set of calls and responses, built around specific rules. In most cases, this is somewhat lopsided. The game tells you what it wants to hear, and you respond accordingly. Spaces of Play's Future Unfolding, with its minimal UI, its lack of tutorials, and its focus on exploration above all else, doesn't play along. So what happens if a game refuses to communicate"
"The basic idea," developer Andreas Zecher claims, "was to make a game that is truly about exploration and respects the freedom of the player. When we started 4 years ago, many games took a very handholding approach to teaching the player the mechanics. Often, something would be shown to you, before you were actually allowed to do it yourself."
When I first played the game two years ago at Gamescom, the circumstances were less than ideal. Amidst a sea of noisy people, putting on a pair of headphones and diving into the game's colorful, weird world somehow felt off. Zecher was intentionably unhelpful, letting me figure out stuff as I went along. All of this felt irritating - in a good way.

Without tutorials, without button prompts and other features we've come to expect, the framing as a videogame takes a backseat. Future Unfolding lets you know which buttons you can push, but it never tells you what they actually do. The only concession to "regular" game UI is a map, which is needed to navigate the game's sprawling and intricate levels.

&qu...