Amanita Design’s Phonopolis mixes Orwellian satire with playful charm

Amanita Design’s latest game made its Orwellian setup feel strangely welcoming, which is the trick that gives Phonopolis its edge. The new story-driven puzzle adventure put Felix, a young dustman, inside a city ruled by the Absolute Tone and The Leader’s oppressive system, then wrapped the whole thing in a hand-painted 3D world made of cardboard, where even the regime’s menace lands with a sly, handmade wink.

That balance matters because Phonopolis was never pitched as a grim political lecture. It launched on May 20, 2026 on PC through Steam, GOG, and the Epic Games Store, with an introductory price of $22.49 for the standard edition, down from $24.99. Amanita’s official materials framed it as a hand-crafted adventure about standing up against The Leader, and the story made Felix the only character who consciously recognized the threat. The result was a dystopia with a clear satirical bite, but one that still invited players to poke at it, not just endure it.

The game’s charm came from the same place longtime Amanita fans know well. Its world leaned into avant-garde art instead of sterile realism, and producer Lukáš Kunce pointed to Constructivism, Futurism, and Suprematism as key inspirations. That helps explain why Phonopolis felt political without becoming airless. It looked like a propaganda machine assembled out of cardboard, paint, and craft-paper geometry, and the tone stayed closer to playful mischief than to terror. Even the puzzles leaned in that direction, reading less like punishing logic tests and more like interactive objects to prod, pull, and decipher.

Amanita backed that vision with a long rollout. The game was first announced in May 2022 and went through what Steam described as a long and challenging development process, a stretch now documented in Constructing Phonopolis, a 50-minute film by Aleš Brunclík released alongside the game. The project also carried a serious stamp of recognition before launch, winning Excellence in Visual Art at the 2024 Independent Games Festival. For a studio founded in Prague and now nearly 20 years deep, that made Phonopolis feel less like a detour than a continuation of a very specific house style.

The collector’s edition and soundtrack, art book options on Amanita’s site fit that same premium approach. Phonopolis did what the best Amanita games always do: it made a strange, politically charged world feel touchable, and then let the joke and the warning sit in the same frame.