When we spoke to one of the South African developers for the game Semblance, he told us that the title started life out as a student project at Wits.

A week earlier we were lucky enough to see these earlier versions of the game at a launch event at the Nintendo Pop-Up store in Sandton – an appropriate venue as Semblance is the first African game to be released on Nintendo’s latest console.

Thankfully everyone can now see the footage we did. The official YouTube account for the game’s developer, Nyamakop, has uploaded a short video showing off the evolution of the game.

As you can see the deformation of the environment that is so integral to Semblance’s gameplay wasn’t the initial key mechanic here. Instead, messing around with the shape of the character Squish came first, with the platform manipulation coming later.

Also interesting here are the sparse colours and sound effects that were used as placeholders until Nyamakop got outside help to fit the look and feel of the released game.

If you want to see more of this kind of content, make sure you follow Nyamakop on Instagram where they’ve promised to share Semblance concept art from development.

If you’re a bit lost when it comes to this game, or you’re still on the fence about buying it, read our review.