SCREENBOUND

Going deep in a mind-bending hybrid of perspectives

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Developer/publisher Crescent Moon Games

Format PC

Origin US

Release TBA

Following two screens at once shouldn’t be too much of an ask these days. Indeed, our first impression as we sit down with Screenbound is that it’s like looking at your phone while walking around the house, which we usually manage without stubbing a toe. As for its multitasking demands, if we can split our attention between a TV show and a social media feed, surely they shouldn’t prove too great a problem. So why, then, is Screenbound such a strange adjustment? Simply because here the two realities are symbiotic.

If it’s any consolation, the two-man team at the core of the project, game director Josh Presseisen and lead developer Kyle McKeever, don’t claim to have it all figured out either. Screenbound marks a reunion for the pair, who first collaborated around ten years ago, producing games such as Morphite and The Deer God, then went their separate ways for a time. In the interim, Presseisen “worked on about a million demos,” he says, “just messing around with ideas.” The spark for Screenbound came when he saw an image of someone playing a Game Boy. “I don’t know why, but I thought that whole image itself could be a good game – the background and holding the device and what’s on the screen.”