Object Impermanence Builds a Puzzle Game Around Looking Away
Object Impermanence is built around a simple idea that could either be brilliant or maddening: when you look away from something, it can stop existing. Rock Paper Shotgun covered the puzzle game this week, and the official Steam page confirms that the mechanic is more than a clever title.
Steam describes a science expedition sent to investigate a planet drifting in a vast void. After a rough landing, the player moves through ruins where old machines and the world itself respond to what the player can see. Doors, elevators, lights, fans, and creatures may behave differently when they leave your field of view.
That gives the game a clean puzzle promise. You are not only solving spatial problems. You are managing attention. The player has to remember what was present a moment ago, decide when to turn away, and use unstable reality as a tool instead of treating it only as a threat.
The risk is obvious. A puzzle game can become frustrating when the rules feel arbitrary. Object Impermanence will need strong teaching, readable spaces, and fair feedback if it wants players to feel clever instead of tricked. The premise is interesting because it asks the player to pay attention carefully, but it cannot afford to make attention feel useless.
For families, this currently looks more like a thoughtful sci-fi puzzle game than a shock-driven horror title, though the desolate-planet framing may still be too eerie for some younger players. As always, the full release and any age rating will matter more than the first trailer impression.
Object Impermanence is live on Steam for wishlisting, and its central mechanic makes it one of the more unusual puzzle-game concepts worth watching.
Sources: Rock Paper Shotgun (https://www.rockpapershotgun.com/object-impermanence-is-a-puzzle-game-where-the-moment-you-look-away-from-something-it-stops-existing); Steam (https://store.steampowered.com/app/3595450/Object_Impermanence/).