Penumbra

A game of light and reason

Three beams of colored light. A handful of stone Obelisks. A floor marked with goals, each asking for one exact color.

In Penumbra you drag Lights around a ring and slide Obelisks across the floor until the light landing in every goal is exactly right. Red and green make yellow. Red, green and blue make white. Step a shadow across a beam and you take a color away. There are no instructions. Each puzzle shows you what moves and what it wants, and leaves the rest to you.

Light adds, shadow subtracts

Every goal needs an exact color: white, a pure primary, a mix, or total darkness. Lights add together where their beams overlap. Obelisks throw long shadows that cut a color out of the floor, and some Obelisks hold back only part of the light, so their shadows come out colored rather than black. A solution is a balance of what you light and what you hide.

Alchemy

You start with a single white Light. As the campaign goes on, it splits into its colors, and then splits again. The Obelisks split apart too. Every new piece is a new tool, and every level builds on where you left the last one.

Features
Handcrafted levels, each built around one idea and one exact solution

Additive color mixing where what you see on the floor is exactly what you get

Colored shadows from Obelisks that filter light rather than block it all

Wordless teaching, with no tutorials and no text, only light, shadow and a goal

A layered soundtrack that adds a voice as each new Light and Obelisk joins you, with every piece pulsing in time to the beat

Color blind mode, which marks every color with a glyph so each puzzle can be solved without telling hues apart

Mouse or controller, with full gamepad support