The maker of cryptic block-seeding puzzler Starseed Pilgrim has announced a new game in which you are invited to do the unspeakable and “kill gameplay”. The End Of Gameplay will be an exploratory 2D platformer according to the tags on its Steam page but anyone who has played the work of creator Droqen might predict those labels to prove looser than a toddler’s shoelace. Enjoyers of obscure and poetic wanderings in minimalist spaces will probably be happy with the trailer below.

The creator describes it as “like Starseed Pilgrim, but only all the parts that nobody told me they cared about”. This is a strong pitch but in what direction I cannot tell. Starseed Pilgrim was a mysterious blockbuilding platformer released back in the hellsands of 2013, in which you had to plant various seeds and discover their effects to go… somewhere? I never quite got it, to be honest. But that’s okay, I’m not alone.

We at RPS regularly and viciously kill the word “gameplay” every time it appears, like a relentless weed in our garden of text (I am strongly restraining myself right now). But that’s just a word, the visible tuft of a greater problem. The concept of gameplay remains stubborn, its roots spreading deep under the soil of the games industry like a vast and undefinable mycorrhizal network. It is this which Droqen seeks to destroy. This mission is a dangerous folly. I am interested to see how it goes.