New Tengami Trailer Demonstrates Its Unique Pop-Up Book Gameplay

Indie developer Nyamnyam Inc has released a beautiful new trailer for upcoming adventure game Tengami.

Tengami manages to bring a new scenario, and even gameplay style, to the adventure game genre. It is essentially a virtual pop-up book, which allows you to turn pages (forward and backward), slide, and pull within its little virtual world. Fittingly enough, the world of Tengami is elegantly designed, as if they were made of paper cutouts, with hues and shapes helping you shape ideas of objects, locations, an entire world.

In Tengami, that world is that of a mythical Japan, one that is simultaneously beautiful and harsh. The basic outlines of shapes hint at a bitterly cold environment, surrounded by dim light. You traverse mountains and forests while snow caps the world around you.

Nyamnyam’s latest trailer does the stellar job of demonstrating the game’s touch controls. You swipe pages with your finger as if you were reading an ebook, and you have complete freedom to move forward or backward a page. Notably, you do not move the story’s protagonist directly. Instead, your actions direct to move the story forward, determining how far he can or cannot go. You can also move around rocks or open up paths for the protagonist by swiping parts of the pop-up world with your finger.

Unmentioned in the trailer but present throughout is the wonderful soundtrack composed by veteran Rare composer David Wise, best known for his work on the Donkey Kong Country games.

Tengami is coming to iOS devices in 2014, with Wii U, Windows, and Mac ports coming a little bit later.