Epanalepsis is a point and click adventure game that is narrative-driven and puzzle light. Telling three intertwined stories in the 1990s, 2010s, and 2030s. Following in the footsteps of games The Shivah, Epanalepsis tells an emotionally heavy story about cities, how they change, and what life has been like under modern technology since the 1990s.

The game’s three protagonists have their own stories and struggles. Rachel is feeling estranged from her girlfriend Vanessa. Anthony thinks he’s retreating into his own private depression. The machines and humans of strange cyberpunk future are living under scanline skies, devoid of hope. Behind all of these struggles, there seems to be something working behind the scenes, a kind of lurking force that is unseen but felt.

Epanalepsis is an attempt to weave a complex and fulfilling narrative while remaining true to inspirations like the work of Philip K. Dick, the fiction and nonfiction of Joanna Russ, Eternal Darkness, and the comics work of Emily Carroll.

As a follow up to 2013’s Kickstarted Catachresis, which funded at over 1000% of its original goal of $100, Epanalepsis wants to fully embrace being a story-centric adventure game with reasonable puzzles that don’t feel unfair or unrealistic in the game world. Whether it is crafting zines in 1993 or avoiding private police forces in 2033, this game seeks to fully immerse players into a lived-in, breathing 2D point and click world.

This isn’t a game that is attempting to reach catch-all mass appeal. Epanalepsis is the game that I want to make, on the terms that I want to do it. It is weird and esoteric, and I am hoping to find my audience of lovers of the weird esoteric. I want to make things for the people like me who love David Cronenberg, Micheline Aharonian Marcom, True Detective, and Virginia Woolf. I want to capture the feeling right as Peter Stormare comes out of the shack in Fargo with the axe; I want to explore the ambivalent cab ride at the end of Lost In Translation. I want to stretch these feelings out and create worlds with them.

The developer and writer of Epanalepsis is Cameron Kunzelman, whose games have been featured on Kotaku, Rock Paper Shotgun, Indie Games, IndieStatik, The Paris Review, The Border House, and more. The music is composed by John Fio aka audiosprite.