Everything

One day, you learn about NDEs, and you start to get the feeling that there’s so much more to reality. Then you keep searching, and learning, and you think you are finally grasping something about your own essence. Suddenly, you look up quantum physics and begin to realize what lies beneath us, and what lies beyond us. How microscopic dynamics have their macroscopic replica, how it all rhymes in an absolute harmony. Then you meditate. You have your own revelation, and piece it all together. There are separate realities, yet they are all the same. Time seems infinite, yet there is only now. An immesurable amount of particles, entities and dimensions, yet all of them are connected through space and time. Each and every one of them with their own level of consciousness. And you are here, a unique fractal of the greater Everything. You know all, and all is you. Then it just… makes sense.

It felt like playing through somebody’s epiphany. This game is f*ing bonkers.

"Everything" was no doubt an interesting experience. It kept me engaged until the end, although this feels like the kind of game that may be better suited to certain people.
There isn’t all that much to really do here. At first, you explore. If you’re interested in the audio clips from Alan Watts’ philosophy lectures, then you explore and listen. After that, if you continue and keep going, you may get bored of the exploring but become engaged in collecting. If you’re not remotely interested in philosophy (or at least, listening to someone babble on in philosophy talk) nor interested in collecting, completing, perfecting, I think there is a chance that you might find this game quite dull.
On the other hand, if you’re quite a curious person, and you have a bit of a perfectionist/completionist mentality mixed with a bit of an interest in philosophy I think this game could keep you engaged as it did with me.
The most enjoyable part of this game for me was figuring out how it worked. You start as one thing, and as you progress you can swap places with other things around you, smaller or bigger in size. You can shrink as small as atomic particles, and grow as large as galaxies. At a point, things loop, and from there it’s interesting navigating an infinitely looping world but trying to grasp how things connect.
The audio logs were interesting to find, but I found myself so distracted by the world that most of the time it was background noise. It’s a nice touch that once you’ve unlocked all the logs, you can play them back whenever you like, either one at a time or as a playlist. There were times I prefered the quiet, and others I wanted Alan to just natter away in my ear. I won’t lie to you and say I understood everything he says, it definitely gave me a bit of a “grandpa rambling in the corner of the room” vibe at times, but his voice is quite calming and he sounds passionate about what he has to say. It’s no doubt an interesting layer to the game and I don’t think it would be the same without it.
The game encourages you to think about life from another perspective. To take what you know and to question it and think about it from a different point of view. With that said, it does this in a very laid back, almost “zen” way.
This is a great game for zoning out and pondering, and that idea is backed up in the gameplay. There are a few features here that you can use to almost turn this game from an interactive experience into a moving screensaver.
When you progress far enough, you can group with other things, and then “dance”. The dancing is essentially a visualizer that will just loop and swirl on your screen until you stop “dancing”. You can also manually walk across the world, but you can also leave it on autopilot to just sit back and watch.
I found this game a lot of fun up until finding the last 2-3% of items. That is very much on me though and I totally expected to feel that way when I decided to commit to finding everything as there are 1,391 things in this game to find. You have to come up with a strategy for combing through each map variation, so this 100% is definitely not for the casual player.
Admittedly, I do think this process could have been more enjoyable the entire way through, if the space levels weren’t so vast and difficult to traverse, which made finding the space items feel like it pretty much halted progress. All of the other maps are a manageable size except the space ones. It makes sense logically, but, come on… If someone goes through the effort to 100% your game, I think it’s a little crappy to make the last few percentages a boring grind.
In terms of achievements, for the most part they aren’t that bad. The hardest achievements include one for finding all of the items and one for finding all of the items and getting all of the other achievements.
Despite the above, I still really enjoyed the game. I love the concept, in that it’s very chill, serious in part with the audio, but goofy in another with the visuals. It balances well and it’s enjoyable to just get lost, think and mess around in a sandbox-esque world. You can choose to respect the nature of things, or if you want, summon an army of turtles in space. Whatever you want, nothing is stopping you.
A quick heads-up for Steam Deck players, you will want to run the game with the Proton Experimental compatibility tool, otherwise the UI will be completely broken.
For more reviews of games with psychological, philosophical or thought-provoking themes, check out my curator page Psychology, Philosophy & Thought, where we review games that explore the mind, get you thinking or make you question.

playing this game feels exactly like it wants you to. It tells me that I am everything and that it's important to view everything from everything's point of view. and I look at all the things that move and dance and sing to me and I want to be everything. There is so much more I want to be; Everything.

This game is like a fever dream.
I would definitely pay full price for it, but at the time of getting it it was 99% off, which I found hilarious because it basically said "Everything on steam is having a 99% discount" or something like that, its been a longg time.
It's fun, silly, I rarely am aware of what I'm doing but that's more on me than anything
I should add this game's main thing is the philosophy but well, I just like rolling around every few months.

I came back to this game and decided to play it while under the influence of Mushrooms... this is the most beautiful game ever, I've never felt so many emotions and just the sounds when really tiny are so satisfying and Alan Watts tidbits are the icing on the cake as someone who loves philosophy. Even without hallucinagens this game is amazing and is well worth the price.

While not strictly a game, this is one of the most interesting experiences I have ever had in the interactive medium. I highly recommend this game and suggest going into it blind.

I was not prepared to like this game as much as I do. When I fired it up for the first time, I was a cow who couldn't "walk". I could roll around to get from A to B and I thought it was so distracting that I logged out and hadn't touched it for a number of weeks/months. Then, I tried it again yesterday when I actually had time to spend...O.M.G!!! I spent HOURS marvelling at all the different levels of existence and the detail contained within each. I jumped from creature to creature, item to item, as much as I could so that I could "discover" them all. Every item or creature that I embodied could "sing" to one another and combine to dance if prompted. It was fascinating to see the world from the perspective of each item. I spent time as a single photon and then I was a tree. Later, I was a house, then I was a cloud........It makes no sense when you describe it to others but, when you play it, IT ALL MAKES SENSE!! Additionally, after about 10 hours of exploring the world, I made a few moves and discovered that I had been playing the TUTORIAL the whole time! Now, I get to do even more exploring during the real game. Amazing! This is a fantastic idle play game that will captivate you and leave you questioning your own place within existence. When they say "Everything" they really mean it. The depth of exploration makes up for the somewhat rudimentary graphics, as compared to more recent titles. Yet, it doesn't bother me in the least. I've found a new go-to when I need to find a peaceful escape from my own existence and I don't want the stress or the pressure of trying to "beat" a game. Think of it as a mental palate-cleanser. When you need to change your head space, THIS is a lovely way to do it. Beautiful!