You’ve just been born. You need to run. Such is life in The Eternal Cylinder.
The Eternal Cylinder is a survival adventure game about braving the wilds of a harsh alien planet while evolving to gain new skills, but nothing in that totally accurate description prepares you for what the game is really like. As an introductory cutscene informs you, you play as a Trebhum, an alien creature with a round body, two stubby legs, and a droopy trunk. You’re a very special Trebhum, in fact, one who can help your endangered species get back on its feet. But first you have to survive.
The instant you take control of your Trebhum, you’re given one instruction: Run. You don’t know why, either as the character or the player, you just know that’s what a voice in the character’s head is shouting at them. So you run, learning how to slurp up water and food with your trunk, and how you can gain new abilities from the world’s other creatures. The first ability you gain grants you long grasshopper-like legs to jump to massive heights, which also conveniently lets you escape your first encounter with the Eternal Cylinder.
A gigantic structure that fills the entire horizon, the Cylinder rolls ever onward, crushing anything in its path — including you, if you’re not fast enough. Progressing through The Eternal Cylinder means activating each of a series of towers that stop the Cylinder in its tracks, then exploring the surrounding area for upgrades and more Trebhum to add to your flock before the Cylinder reawakens, forcing you to run to the next tower. Rinse and repeat.
That still doesn’t really tell you what it’s like to play The Eternal Cylinder. The act of playing the game should feel familiar and even approachable for anyone who’s played survival games before. You need to find food and water, adapt to hot and cold environments, avoid being gobbled up by any of your neighbors, and solve a series of puzzles to make your way through its environments. There’s nothing particularly challenging about its controls or your abilities, though your jump is maybe a little too finicky.
But while the game’s basic mechanics are simple, there’s nothing that feels quite like playing The Eternal Cylinder. First off, I can’t think of any other games with a giant animated cylinder chasing you the whole time, but that’s not really what makes it so special. The sense of fragility of your Trebhum makes the world feel genuinely hostile, just as the surreal imagery of its landscapes and the secrets hidden throughout make it feel like a world worth exploring nonetheless.
Video game environments can often feel like giant puzzles to be solved, but the world of The Eternal Cylinder seems somehow more real than that, despite being full of oddities that defy common sense and physics alike. And when you discover a fellow Trebhum, the sheer harshness of the world is an incitement to save it, not only because doing so will help you on your journey, but to spare the poor thing from being eaten or crushed by what comes along after you.
All of this is underscored by wonderful narration that continues from the first moments of the game to the last. An unseen narrator guides the Trebhum on its bizarre journey while also teaching the player about the world they’re exploring and the history of both the Trebhum species and the Eternal Cylinder. The Cylinder, in the narrator’s telling, is more than just a force of nature, and the Trebhum is more than an animal. Through individual Trebhum’s ability to adapt, they represent growth and creativity, always at risk of being crushed by the Cylinder in its quest to flatten the planet, crushing its wild diversity beneath it. The Eternal Cylinder is by no means focused on its story, but its compelling themes add one more reason to make the Trebhums’ journey worth seeing through to the end.
The Eternal Cylinder is proof that even in a space as familiar as survival games, there’s still room for surprisingly transcendent experiences. This month, The Eternal Cylinder is included with Amazon Prime subscriptions, making it a great time to discover this utterly original gem.
