Without intending to sound pretentious (although instantly resigning this piece to that fate), Proteus is not so much a game as it is an experience. One which everyone should share in.

Straightaway it is easy to see why it won Notch’s Game of the Year last December at the Indievisibility Awards. At their core, both Proteus and Mojang’s Minecraft have a common theme running through them.

Both games are centred on the joy one can derive from exploring an interesting environment. However, while Minecraft allows you to actively shape your travels with a pickaxe and shovel, Proteus steps back from the player, passively encouraging you to investigate new areas through less invasive means.

This is accomplished often very subtly through the use of music and ambient sounds, which infuse the gameplay experience. As you walk through the lush island setting where the title takes place, you are treated to an ever shifting musical accompaniment. One moment this may be more subtle, however, as you walk up to a flock of birds or an interesting bit of flora, the tune comes alive, and with it the entire tone of the environment changes.

Standing atop the taller mountains which rise higher than the clouds is at first an enjoyable experience, allowing the player to look down on the environment which he has just traversed. Below you are the trees and the animals, and in the distance the beaches and the sea.

However, you slowly start to feel unsettled as it dawns on you that the once cheerful and uplifting tune you had enjoyed a moment before only plays amongst the verdant setting below. The only company at the top of this world is the wind and the silence. You feel lonely and want to go back to the song.

While the music shapes your travels so too does the environment. The island is rich with weird flora and fauna not to mention strange structures and shapes, and if these do not sufficiently entice you then there are simple paths scattered about the island to follow, purely to learn what lies at the other end.

The look of Proteus treads a thin line between mysterious and simple, which may or may not be to everyone’s taste at first. However, as you walk the length of the island, your imagination starts to take over, and what you had once dismissed as odd geometric shapes start to develop in your mind until they become something new. Are they standing stones? Perhaps graves? Are you alone on this island or were there once others?

And as the night time falls, and the sound once again changes, so too do the animals which share the island with you. An owl stands out against the darkness of the sky, white as the moon, with its cries standing out against the stillness. The bright colours fade as the sun goes down, allowing you to be drawn to whatever lights remains.

It is hard to say that in its current state Proteus is really a game. All you can do is walk and look, and there is no active engagement with any part of the island. It is a place you visit and, in the case of this player, one which you can find to be an extremely relaxing experience. The game is still some way away from seeing official release but when it does, I urge all you reading this to take a trip to Proteus.

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