CICADAMATA” has arrived on Steam, and it is already earning praise for being one of the most visually inventive indie releases of the year. Developed and published by flowergarden, this first-person platformer launched on August 21 with a 10% introductory discount, bringing the price down to $8.99 USD for a limited time.
The game drops players into a surreal digital landscape as FAWN-A2, a newly enlisted CICADA navigating a series of abstract spheres filled with geometric threats and disorienting architecture. Movement is the core mechanic here. Players can hop, skip, and jump across floating platforms while wielding the MATA” device, which unlocks a slow-motion “ZONE TIME” ability that helps with precision traversal and dispatching enemies. With over 15 freeform levels spread across six distinct spheres, CICADAMATA” offers a surprisingly deep challenge for players who enjoy score-attack and speedrun-style gameplay.
What sets CICADAMATA” apart is its striking visual identity. The game leans heavily into a lo-fi, glitch-inspired aesthetic that uses scanlines, dithering patterns, and washed-out neon palettes to create something that feels like a corrupted data transmission from another dimension. It is deliberately rough around the edges in a way that enhances the atmosphere rather than detracting from it. Rock Paper Shotgun has already highlighted the game’s crunchy sound design and praised its movement systems as among the best in the genre.
For Steam players looking for something genuinely different from the usual roster of survival crafters and roguelites, CICADAMATA” delivers a focused, stylish experience that rewards precision and experimentation. The game runs on modest hardware, requiring only a GTX 1050 or equivalent, and supports both keyboard and controller input. A global leaderboard system lets players compare records across the CICADA network, adding competitive replayability to what is already a tightly designed package.
The 10% launch discount runs through August 28, giving interested players a week to grab it at a reduced price. You can find CICADAMATA” on its official Steam store page, and the developer flowergarden has indicated that additional content updates are planned for the future.
Dan Kowalski reviews games by listening to what they do before believing what they promise. He cares about responsive combat, purposeful sound design, satisfying movement, and whether a game respects the player’s time. Dan will forgive technical roughness when the underlying experience is exceptional. He will forgive almost anything for a brilliant combat system—but never a tutorial that refuses to stop talking.
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