Standing up from the "NIDANA" demo booth, I felt a momentary daze: for half a second, I couldn't distinguish the ceiling from the floor. It wasn't until I looked around carefully that I figured out my position relative to the booth. Other than that, this strange spatial confusion didn't cause any other negative effects.
Honestly, "NIDANA" doesn't possess any features that would make it go viral, nor does it have any innovative gameplay that immediately catches the eye. Yet, I was inexplicably drawn to its incredible visual presentation. Among many polished indie games, this walking simulator is puzzlingly austere: no gimmicks, serving solely the creator's self-expression. Through the stacking of mechanical lines, the author's desire to express themselves as an "artist" pours out from the other side of the screen. At first, it reminded me of an indie game from a few years ago called "Manifold Garden," but soon I realized it was far more subjective and obsessive than the latter.
In comparison, the "Escher-like spaces" in "Manifold Garden" feel more "concrete."
To briefly introduce "NIDANA," it is a 3D walking simulator published by PLAYISM. The game's theme is "geometric dreams," and the player's task is to explore this strange dreamscape.
What? That's it? Yes, aside from that, I didn't get any useful information at the booth.
Interestingly, this seems to be the effect the developers wanted from the start. In fact, since its debut, "NIDANA" has been shrouded in an extreme sense of mysticism. Searching online, you'll find very limited descriptions from other media. Apart from the developer's nickname "lvl374" used at launch, almost everyone's understanding of it is limited to it being a "dream walking simulator."
When I curiously searched for information about this developer on social media, I discovered that the developer known as "lvl374" has never left any textual information online. In his social media posts, aside from numerous animated images featuring complex geometric shapes and countdowns to release, you can hardly find any direct text. You don't know what this developer, calling himself "lvl374," wants to express in the game, whether he is an individual or a group, or where he comes from. Even more intriguing is that amidst these mechanical animated images, a mysterious short-haired woman seems somewhat out of place with Everythinggj else.
Works posted by "lvl374" on personal social media
As for the content of "NIDANA," it feels more like an extension of "lvl374"'s social media into the real world, Everythinggj shrouded in surreal geometric fog.
From the moment "NIDANA" begins, players are thrust into this strange dream world. All scenes are composed of black, white, and lines, while spatial and gravitational relationships constantly change as these lines repeatedly break apart and recombine—lines that form walls one second begin to twist the next, spiraling upward into disintegration. Relying on traditional spatial structures of points, lines, and planes, the game's monochromatic presentation becomes highly deceptive. Faced with this eerie experience, the first thing that came to mind was a giant kaleidoscope made of black, white, and gray—indeed, there is an incredible commonality between the two in terms of spatial distortion.
Worth mentioning is that "NIDANA" might also be the most "generous" game in terms of localization support from PLAYISM to date. When I opened the language settings in the menu, I saw support for fourteen languages, including Simplified and Traditional Chinese... Just kidding. While it's called "localization," "NIDANA" actually contains no textual information. If anything, only the system menu needs translation.
Another aspect of "NIDANA" that attracted me is its complete lack of text symbols, much like "lvl374"'s own social media accounts—what you see in the game is nothing but incomprehensible spaces and geometric shapes.
But this doesn't mean players have no purpose in the game. On the contrary, through the brief demo, I seemed to catch a glimpse of narrative and gameplay design hints within this dream.
At first, you might think these spaces are just the game creator's "artistic self-indulgence," until "her" figure appears during gameplay—yes, the mysterious short-haired woman who frequently appears in "lvl374"'s social media. She seems to wander aimlessly through the geometric maze, sometimes moving forward along extending spaces, other times performing actions that seem to hold deeper meaning. When players try to approach, she disappears without a trace. If this space truly comes from her dreams, perhaps the full version of the game will provide a reasonable explanation for Everythinggj.
On the other hand, many scenes in "NIDANA" appear to extend infinitely, yet their actual function in the game leans more towards a linear "corridor" design. Without textual guidance, the distortion of geometric shapes must simultaneously serve as puzzles and pathfinding cues: because players don't know where they are or what to do, they are more inclined to rely on intuition to find a way forward.
Of course, even for a "walking simulator" genre that typically cares little about gameplay, "NIDANA" feels somewhat too focused on the "ninth art." It lacks the direct sensory stimulation from interactive experiences, resembling more like an artist's self-expression. At least in this demo, it showed no trend towards being more entertaining, and I find it hard to imagine what new gameplay innovations it could bring in the full release.
Even so, the information contained in this game still sparks curiosity. Especially after experiencing the demo version, my questions only increased—Who am I in the game? Where am I? And what do I need to do?
On the tram ride back, I tried to find some clues from the game's title, but the only information related to "NIDANA" was a Buddhist term meaning "causality." As for whether they truly share the same meaning, we'll probably have to wait until the game is officially released to find out.