Periphery Synthetic is a chill, accessible audio dream

Space is a soundless vacuum home to countless wonders. Aphotic black holes and the dazzling plasma they stir, starling nebulae, and the pulsars that infuse our physics books with color — the universe is full of sights. Periphery Synthetic asks, what if, rather than a visual cacophony, ours were a universe of sublime noise? Or rather, what if, in this silent universe, sound was all we had by which to navigate?

Periphery Synthetic tasks the player with exploring the stellar system Alpha Periphery. You do this by traversing and scanning planets to assess their viability for colonization. The minerals you find along the way can be used to upgrade your gear to more efficiently carry out your task, and, as you go, you’ll slowly unravel the mysteries of Alpha Periphery in a chill, undemanding, and meditative sound-driven experience.

“There are over 100 unique synths covering the user interface, music, and environmental sounds for each world and other sound effects like footsteps and collisions,” the game’s solo developer, who goes by the handle shiftBacktick, tells The Verge. “Dozens of them are playing at once to make the overall soundscape.”

These sounds are your primary method of navigation. Warbling tones surround collectibles, the crunching roll of synths shifts on different surfaces, and the terrain pulses. All can be momentarily silenced by your scanner, which audibly pings nearby objects and recenters the player in the search for more materials. It’s not a smorgasbord of disparate noise, however. Periphery Synthetic employs two chords — along with harmonics and inversions of those chords — to create a persistent, almost naturalized soundboard by which to communicate everything in its environment.

The immediate comparison one could make is to Proteus, Ed Key and David Kanaga’s sound-motivated dreamscape. This common ground isn’t entirely accidental. Proteus was the game shiftBacktick played, they said, when first experimenting with acid — an experience they describe as profound. This, however, is as far as the connection goes. “It’s more about packaging that ineffable ephemerality of the psychedelic experience into cozy low-stimulus environments that are perfect for your mind’s eye to wander,” shiftBacktick says.

Wander it will. Playing Periphery Synthetic, whether by sight or sound, is to court a trance-like sensation. What visual world it provides is communicated through a succession of squares of different sizes, concentrations, and orientations. They represent the sun, the stars, collectibles, and the barren landscapes that scroll to the horizon. It brings to mind the synthesized imagery of Windows XP’s Media Player as I listened to David Byrne’s “Like Humans Do” for the umpteenth time because I was too young to understand how to put music on the computer.

The simplicity is beguiling, especially in concert with the reverberating echoes pumping through the speakers. Indeed, though I usually write to a combination of colorful noise, for this feature, I simply booted up the game in the background and let its pulsing tones lull my mind into focus for a similar effect. 

For all of this, though, Periphery Synthetic is a game designed to be played without seeing the screen. This manifests in a settings menu where a host of sliders control the highly parameterized soundboard. Elsewhere, control settings include dead zone adjustment and sensitivity — though no rebinding. In another menu, an extensive “how to play” guide offers context to a game that can be experienced, within the loop it lays down, mostly as the player desires.

Whether you engage in a blistering hunt for minerals or a relaxing drive across Periphery Synthetic’s worlds, meandering into progression when you feel like it, it is a game that is at once both inherently welcoming and customizable. For a solo developer, it’s an admirable level of accessibility in a game designed to be played by sound alone (and which I had no problem playing with one hand, on keyboard).

This is, of course, excellent news for blind and visually impaired gamers as Periphery Synthetic joins a short list of video games that should be playable without assistance. Though it does not include a dedicated text-to-speech function, it does fully support screen readers to make sure its text-heavy lore and menus are as navigable as the rest of the game.

This, according to shiftBacktick — who has a background in web development and the accessibility that is standard there — is owed in large part to the community that has formed around their development process and our long tradition of audio games. “Learning about the history of these sorts of games and shedding my ego were important steps along my accessibility journey,” shiftBacktick says. “As a sighted game developer, it’s my moral responsibility to help reduce these barriers for as many folks as I can.”

Though the gameplay loop of Periphery Synthetic can be achieved through sight, I would argue the best way to experience it as a sighted player is to turn off its graphics (another menu option), even if only temporarily. The game doesn’t demand much, but even so, I found myself defaulting to the visual as I started. It was only after I switched them off and embraced the avenues its warbling pulses and harmonics led me down that I truly appreciated the meditative, almost hyperfocused quality Periphery Synthetic inspires. 

That feeling carries over to whenever you revisit the game’s graphics, but I would urge sighted players to spend at least a little time in the depths of a black screen being guided by the game’s remarkably broad soundscape. There’s no danger in it — no fail states — but there’s a lot to be discovered by doing so, both about other gamers’ experiences but also about one’s self.

“Periphery Synthetic doesn’t hold your hand or demand much to reach the end,” shiftBacktick says. “I hope it recaptures your childhood sense of exploration and discovery and brings you joy along the way.”

Though gaming has a reputation as a visual medium, Periphery Synthetic proves there is more potential in video games beyond visual acuity. The result is a sympathetic, almost equitable experience in which the features that make it so approachable to so many are less an additive than an invisible vehicle to common ground between varying abilities. It’s blissful to hop across its sprawling worlds, to slide down its mountains, and to let go in its pulsing soundscape.

Periphery Synthetic is a rare game that grants players permission to exist within its loose bounds as they like and unites them in gameplay that is powerfully similar from one player to another, regardless of how they are able to approach the experience.

Periphery Synthetic is out today on PC.