The story of Columnea is set more than a century after an environmental catastrophe left the surface of the Earth uninhabitable, and the rich locked themselves up in Deus: a closed heavenly settlement built upon gigantic metal pillars called Columnae. Beneath Columnae, a huge apparatus Machina was built to automatically extract underground resources and pump them up via pipes, through Columnae and into Deus. Trying to escape the lethal environment on the surface, those not wealthy enough settled in Columnae, where they now live by parasitizing on resources coming from Machina. Not only unable to enter Deus, but also unwilling to cooperate with people living on nearby Cliffs, the society of Columnae is plagued by corruption, political manipulation, power struggle and poverty.

To escape a catastrophe, the rich built a haven for themselves high in the skies and those who could not afford it had to hide within its pillars. As a player, you are one of those unlucky many who survive in Columnae, the pillars of Deus. During the game, you’ll explore the Columnae filled with intrigue, the underground Machina holding secrets from the past, the anarcho-tribal society of The Cliffs, and the industrious Greenhouse Dome owned by The Baroness, all in order to find your way into the heaven on Earth – Deus.

Columnea relies on classic point & click adventure mechanics, but also features a non–linear approach persistent throughout the gameplay, allowing a huge replayability. Additionally, we introduced a concept of retrocausality: chapters of the game are not played in chronological order, which allows the player to affect not only the future but also the past of the main character and the world surrounding him. Depending on the actions that the player chooses to do within each chapter, yet-to-be-played chapters are placed in an appropriate "version" of the past or the future.

Columnea is set in a world ruined by a gradual environmental catastrophe that left the air on the surface unbreathable about 140 years ago. The story is focused on a society descended from people who couldn't afford to inhabit Deus - the "city in the clouds", in the moment when the ecological disaster was imminent. Deus is a closed town surrounded by a mechanical steel shell, and built upon 127 gigantic (over 600m/2000ft high) metal pillars – Columnae. Beneath them, a huge underground machinery, called Machina, was built with the purpose of automatically extracting and processing resources and sending them via pipes through Columnae and into Deus. This way, Machina was constructed to provide all the necessary resources to the people living in Deus indefinitely, so they would never have to leave it again - and to this day, they never did.

You can find out more about the world of Columnea and vote for it on Square Enix Collective.

Key Features

• story–driven game with classic point & click adventure elements such as puzzles based on items and dialogues
• non–linear approach persistent throughout the gameplay, allowing a huge replayability
• retrocausality – chapters are not played in chronological order, which allows the player to affect not only the future but also the past of the main character and the world. Depending on the actions that the player chooses to do within each chapter, yet–to–be–played chapters are placed in an appropriate "version" of the past or the future.
• steampunk world with four distinct environments including: upper and lower Columnae filled with intrigue, underground Machina holding secrets from the past, anarcho–tribal society of The Cliffs, and industrious Greenhouse–Dome owned by The Baroness.

Game will be separated into eight chapters: in-world, Chapter 1 happens before all the others, and Chapter 8 is the last one. However, they will not be played chronologically, but in the following order: 4, 1, 3, 5, 7, 6, 2, 8. This twist, together with continuous branching of the story based on your choices, will enable you (as the player) to affect not only the future, but also the past of the character you are playing and the world surrounding him.