Development studio ATRAX Games teamed up with publisher Mastertronic to bring Sym, a unique puzzle-platformer, to Steam this March. In order to tease the masses, they’ve just launched a free demo.

Sym is a puzzle-platformer, with a theme inspired by social anxiety disorder. You play as Josh, a teenage boy tormented by a crippling form of social anxiety and navigate his journey to reconcile a maze of two contrasting worlds, coexisting within the blank spaces of each other – his perception of reality and the world he created to avoid his fears.

Josh exists in his own world as alter egos, Caleb and Ammiel. Caleb lives in the light, white world and wants to overcome his fears. For him, black is solid and white is hollow. With Ammiel, it is the opposite. Ammiel is representative of Josh’s inner, reclusive self where he wants to be lonely and where feeling ‘safe’ is to escape totally from human contact. They cannot exist simultaneously. Both worlds depict dangers that the player must overcome, and an inner monologue written across Sym‘s abstract spaces serves to illuminate the anguish the character endures.

“Finally our effort is rewarded! I want to thank all the people who voted us on Steam Greenlight!” commented ATRAX Games Programmer, Sebastiano Morando.

Stuart Morton, Producer at Mastertronic, added: “Sym is the perfect example of how games can push boundaries and combine great gameplay whilst tackling significant real-world issues. The team at Atrax Games handle the challenge with distinction. It’s a pleasure to be working with them to bring Sym to the world.”

Sym will be launching soon for Windows PC and Mac and the game demo is available now on Steam.