FAQ

How do you say it?

Sem-bluh-cher, same ending as signature or armature. A semblature is an assembled whole of seemings, which is what the bench is.

Is it multiplayer or co-op?

No. Semblature is single-player only. It's you, the bench, and the statements.

How long is it, and does it end?

About five hours to 100% of the Steam achievements, and yes: a real ending. It isn't a live service and there's no season pass. When you're done, you've finished a game, all of it.

There are plenty of puzzles, so play as much of it at a sitting as you like, and come back to it as often as you like. Nothing rewards showing up daily and nothing punishes missing a day: no streaks, no chores, nothing to grind. If you play it every evening it should be because you wanted to.

How much will it cost?

$4.99 USD, one purchase. No microtransactions and no ads. The price is set against the size of the game: about five hours to 100% of the Steam achievements, with an ending. Nothing is held back from it to sell separately, and if I ever charge for something extra later it will be a real addition priced against its own size. A free demo is planned before launch.

When is it out?

A free demo in October 2026, and the full game in December 2026.

Both are targets rather than promises. I make this in the evenings around a day job, and if it isn't ready I would rather move the date than ship it thin. If one of those slips, it will slip openly and you'll read about it here. The Steam page carries the live date and updates first; wishlisting is the reliable way to hear about it.

Will I get stuck and have to look things up?

That's the thing the design most wants to prevent. The evidence always suffices, and you never need to guess or deal with RNG. Every puzzle's solution is verified unique, and nothing on the bench is decided by a dice roll. Hints are free and unlimited: the first one nudges you toward evidence you haven't used, and if you'd rather just be told, it will give you a clear move. If a puzzle can't be solved from what's in front of you, that's a bug, so report it.

Is there a difficulty setting?

No. There's one tuned path for everyone; the puzzles carry the difficulty so a menu doesn't have to. Playing with hints is a first-class way to play. Nothing in the game marks it as lesser, and 100% of the Steam achievements is reachable whether you used hints or not.

What about accessibility?

Commitments, at launch and not after: information is never carried by colour alone; motion, flashing and shake all have toggles; text size is adjustable independently of UI scale; and music, speech and effects have independent volume sliders that each reach silence.

What languages will it be in?

English at launch. Anything else appears on the Steam page only once a native speaker who has not seen the English has solved real puzzles in it and got them right. In a deduction game a bad translation is not a rough edge, it is an unsolvable puzzle. The store page carries the current list; this page will not keep a second one.

Will it run on my machine?

Almost certainly. It's a 2D Unity game, and the settings scale a long way down: integrated graphics, a several-year-old laptop, a handheld. That floor was set before the first build and has been held to since, because a puzzle game that locks someone out over a graphics card has cost itself a player for nothing.

It scales up, too. Turned all the way up it still runs on far more machines than you would expect, and where there is headroom I would rather spend it than leave it sitting there. A bench should be worth looking at, not only worth solving.

The store page carries the honest minimum specification.

Mouse, controller, or Steam Deck?

All three, and none of them as an afterthought. Mouse and keyboard, controller, and the Deck's touchscreen are being designed for together, so that no one of them is the real way to play and the others a port of it. A bench is a small board you rearrange, and it suits a stick, a cursor and a thumb about equally, which is unusually lucky and worth not wasting.

What I won't do is claim a Steam Deck compatibility rating before it has been earned on the actual hardware. If the store page ever shows one, it means the game has been played there, not that it compiled.

Is AI used to make it?

Yes, in parts of production. The art is generated on my own machine and then edited by hand; the music is generated with a cloud tool and then chosen and arranged by me. No model writes the puzzles. They come out of an offline program in big batches, every one is checked by a solver, and I tweak the story-carrying ones by hand. Nothing is generated while you play.

That summary is short on purpose. The how-it's-made page itemises it asset by asset, and it is the copy that governs.

I found a bug / my question isn't here

[email protected]. Everything gets read, and replies can take a few days.