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The Perfect Pencil

The Perfect Pencil is a great metroidvania full of exploration, a rich story, and odd, hand-drawn characters that give the game a surreal feel you need to experience for yourself.
The Perfect Pencil Game Cover
75%Game Brain Score
Most mentioned positive aspects:story, gameplay
Most mentioned negative aspects:grinding, optimization
84% User Score Based on 37 reviews
Critic Score 79%Based on 5 reviews

Platforms

PCSteam DeckWindows
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The Perfect Pencil Game Cover

About The Perfect Pencil

The Perfect Pencil is a single player platformer game with horror and mystery themes. It was developed by Studio Cima and was released on January 29, 2026. It received mostly positive reviews from critics and positive reviews from players.

The Perfect Pencil is a surreal action platformer which tells the tale of personal development and the psychology of fear. Join protagonist John as he awakens in a bizarre hand-drawn kingdom and comes face-to-face with the terrors that dwell in the last place he'd have thought to look... Embark on an emotional odyssey exploring the depths of an unfamiliar environment using protagonist John's …

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The Perfect Pencil screenshot
The Perfect Pencil screenshot
The Perfect Pencil screenshot
The Perfect Pencil screenshot
The Perfect Pencil screenshot
The Perfect Pencil screenshot
The Perfect Pencil screenshot
The Perfect Pencil screenshot
The Perfect Pencil screenshot
The Perfect Pencil screenshot
The Perfect Pencil screenshot
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Reviews

84%Audience ScoreBased on 37 reviews
story15 positive mentions
grinding2 negative mentions
  • The game features a unique, memorable, and artistically impressive world with imaginative art direction, creative enemy designs, and diverse, eccentric characters.
  • A meaningful and emotionally impactful narrative explores deep mental health themes and human emotions with originality and depth.
  • Engaging exploration with well-designed interconnected levels, satisfying secrets, creative platforming mechanics, and a rewarding upgrade system enhance player immersion.
  • Combat mechanics are often criticized for being sluggish, unpolished, and frustrating, with an awkward healing system and limited offensive options reducing enjoyment.
  • The narrative and dialogue-heavy approach can result in obtuse storytelling, pacing disruptions, excessive filler text, and unclear progression leading to player confusion.
  • Technical and design issues such as inconvenient fast travel, sparse save points causing lengthy runbacks, lack of key remapping, performance stutters, and occasional crashes undermine the experience.

  • story

    30 mentions Positive Neutral Negative
    50% positive mentions, 40% neutral mentions, 10% negative mentions

    The story of "The Perfect Pencil" is deeply immersive, exploring complex themes like fear, shame, and mental struggles through a symbolic and often surreal narrative. While some players find the plot obtuse or confusing, requiring patience to fully grasp, others praise its richness, emotional depth, and unique character designs. Its strong storytelling is a key highlight, especially for those who appreciate narrative-driven metroidvanias, though it may challenge players who prefer more straightforward plots.

    • “One of the biggest strengths of the game is its storytelling: the story unfolds step by step, and you can only truly understand it by playing.”
    • “The perfect pencil tackles some very serious subject matter, with the nature of fear, shame and the lengths to which people are willing to go in order to avoid discomfort being dominant themes that permeate nearly every aspect of the plot in interesting ways.”
    • “The perfect pencil is a great metroidvania full of exploration, a rich story, and odd, hand-drawn characters that give the game a surreal feel you need to experience for yourself.”
    • “The Perfect Pencil is the most confusing Metroidvania I've ever played, with a completely nonsensical story, unclear endings, and gameplay systems that are obtuse, random, and hard to understand.”
    • “Yes, the movement upgrades, a core aspect of a Metroidvania, are locked behind a nonsensical story choice.”
    • “Storytelling can be a bit too obtuse and it's easy to get lost, especially with lengthy runbacks.”

  • gameplay

    21 mentions Positive Neutral Negative
    24% positive mentions, 62% neutral mentions, 14% negative mentions

    The gameplay in The Perfect Pencil presents a mixed experience, with some finding it frustrating due to obtuse mechanics like an annoying healing system and contact damage, while others appreciate its smooth combat, balanced difficulty, and unique risk-reward elements. It follows a familiar metroidvania formula but is distinguished by creative enemy designs, movement mechanics, and engaging exploration. Though narrative and atmosphere often take precedence, the gameplay offers enough challenge and innovation to remain engaging for many players.

    • “Art is amazing, gameplay is very enjoyable and narrative themes are super interesting!”
    • “So far, the gameplay feels well balanced, not too hard or frustrating, but not too easy or boring either.”
    • “Gameplay is smooth: combat and exploration feel nice and they are not too taxing so you can easily focus on the story and the characters.”
    • “The Perfect Pencil is the most confusing metroidvania I've ever played, featuring a nonsensical story with unclear endings and gameplay systems that are obtuse, random, and hard to understand.”
    • “This single mechanic ruins the otherwise decent combat since you get hit easily and often as the dash has no invincibility frames and there's contact damage. You also get knocked back very far if you take damage, which makes enemies a nuisance during exploration.”
    • “That is because most bosses love to teleport all over the place, often right on top of you, dealing contact damage. Combat as a whole is just frustrating because of this, further compounded by two of my least favorite mechanics: corpse running and runbacks.”

  • graphics

    7 mentions Positive Neutral Negative
    43% positive mentions, 57% neutral mentions, 0% negative mentions

    The graphics are widely praised for their beautiful, polished, and distinct art style, with inspired level design and meticulous visual craftsmanship. The unique visuals, often hand-drawn and detailed, create an engaging and immersive world that greatly enhances the overall experience. Some note a deliberate use of darker or unconventional tones, adding to the game's unique charm.

    • “Not only is the world great, but it is beautiful. What brings this game's world over the top is the graphics for sure.”
    • “I’ve played for 68 minutes so far and I was immediately hooked by the visuals — the art direction is incredibly polished and clearly crafted with obsessive care.”
    • “It is obviously very Hollow Knight inspired, but I'm very surprised. Didn't expect this level of polish. I absolutely recommend this game if you love Metroidvanias, English humor, and gorgeous hand-drawn graphics!”

  • humor

    6 mentions Positive Neutral Negative
    100% positive mentions, 0% neutral mentions, 0% negative mentions

    The game's humor is quirky and casual, often deadpan, providing a refreshing contrast to its deep and serious narrative. It balances touching storytelling with wild, English-style comedic moments, enhancing the overall experience without undermining the game's emotional depth.

    • “It's casually hilarious in wild ways, while still maintaining its deep themes.”
    • “The game deals with serious topics but surprisingly has quite a lot of deadpan humor sprinkled throughout the dialogues.”
    • “The perfect pencil controls smooth (Xbox controller), has already some refreshing Metroidvania elements, quirky humor, beautiful art style, interesting menu and, despite the sombre set-up, is a lovely, touching story to go through.”

  • music

    5 mentions Positive Neutral Negative
    60% positive mentions, 0% neutral mentions, 40% negative mentions

    The music in the game is a mixed bag, with some finding it odd or average, while others praise its sound design and atmospheric contribution. Overall, it fits the game but may not be universally pleasant or memorable.

    • “Art and music are gorgeous and controls are nice and responsive.”
    • “I also play with Rig 500 Pro headphones for better immersion, and it’s absolutely worth it — the sound design and music are very well developed and add a lot to the atmosphere.”
    • “The music and sound design colorfully weave the story's themes; somber and uplifting.”
    • “Same goes for the music which was just odd; it fit the game for sure but that didn't make it pleasant to listen to.”
    • “My biggest complaint is that the soundtrack is painfully average to below average and sounds like a Newgrounds flash game at times.”

  • character development

    4 mentions Positive Neutral Negative
    75% positive mentions, 25% neutral mentions, 0% negative mentions

    The character development is highly praised for its artistic quality, unique and diverse designs, and strong narrative integration, contributing significantly to an enjoyable story and immersive atmosphere.

    • “Artistically and narratively, the world building, the character development, it's all top shelf.”
    • “Story has been quite enjoyable and I love the character designs.”
    • “The art and character design is great and very diverse.”

  • emotional

    4 mentions Positive Neutral Negative
    100% positive mentions, 0% neutral mentions, 0% negative mentions

    The game offers a deeply emotional and meaningful narrative that resonates with many players, portraying themes of struggle and personal growth. Despite occasional gameplay taking a backseat, its heartfelt story, complemented by smooth controls, beautiful art, and touching moments, makes for a memorable and impactful experience.

    • “All in all, The Perfect Pencil is a worthwhile game that boasts a very emotional and meaningful narrative, even if gameplay sometimes takes a backseat in favor of it.”
    • “I'm sure many people relate to the portrayals of struggle themed throughout this game and the significance of each character during emotional states and the formula for moving past them.”
    • “The Perfect Pencil controls smoothly (Xbox controller), has some refreshing music video elements, quirky humor, beautiful art style, interesting menu, and despite the sombre setup, is a lovely, touching story to experience.”

  • atmosphere

    3 mentions Positive Neutral Negative
    100% positive mentions, 0% neutral mentions, 0% negative mentions

    Players praise the game’s atmosphere for its unique and enchanting art style, immersive sound design, and well-crafted music, all of which enhance the overall experience. The game’s thematic depth, particularly its handling of mental health, adds an emotional layer that resonates strongly with many users.

    • “I also play with Rig 500 Pro headphones for better immersion, and it’s absolutely worth it — the sound design and music are very well developed and add a lot to the atmosphere.”
    • “This game is so enchanting from the beginning, the art is so unique and the atmosphere is endearing. It also addresses mental health issues, a theme very close to my heart, so I'm curious to see where the story goes!”
    • “I absolutely love the atmosphere and the unique character design.”

  • grinding

    2 mentions Positive Neutral Negative
    0% positive mentions, 0% neutral mentions, 100% negative mentions

    Grinding in the game is mitigated by the presence of shortcuts discovered during exploration, which reduce travel time and make backtracking less tedious. However, fast travel unlocks late and is considered cumbersome to use, limiting its usefulness.

    • “Not like the fast travel is that useful anyways as first of all it only unlocks after like 10 hours and is annoyingly tedious to use.”

  • optimization

    2 mentions Positive Neutral Negative
    0% positive mentions, 0% neutral mentions, 100% negative mentions

    The optimization is generally acceptable but has some performance issues, including minor FPS drops and occasional stuttering. These problems are noticeable but not severely detrimental to the experience.

    • “What didn't work sufficiently though was the performance, I had a few minor FPS drops but that can be forgiven.”
    • “I also experienced some issues with stuttering.”
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Critic Reviews

79%Critics’ scoreBased on 5 critic reviews
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Play Times

15h Median play time
15h Average play time
15-15h Spent by most gamers
*Based on 1 analyzed playthroughs
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Videos

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Game News

Mini Review: The Perfect Pencil (Switch) - A Sharp, Horror-Tinged Metroidvania With Splashes Of Hollow Knight

February 4 on nintendolife.com

The surreal psychological platformer, The Perfect Pencil, is out now for PC and the Switch

January 30 on azurewebsites.net
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Frequently Asked Questions

The Perfect Pencil is a platformer game with horror and mystery themes. Common tags for The Perfect Pencil include indie, psychological, exploration, emotional, metroidvania and others.

The Perfect Pencil is available on PC, Steam Deck and Windows.

On average players spend around 15 hours playing The Perfect Pencil.

The Perfect Pencil was released on January 29, 2026.

The Perfect Pencil was developed by Studio Cima.

The Perfect Pencil has received mostly positive reviews from players and mostly positive reviews from critics. Most players liked The Perfect Pencil for its story but disliked it for its grinding.

The Perfect Pencil is a single player game.

Similar games include Voidwrought, Constance, Haiku, the Robot, Solateria, MIO: Memories in Orbit and others.