The Eternal Life of Goldman has been on my radar for a while now. Developed by Cyprus-based Weappy Studio and reportedly in development since 2016, the game has always stood out to me thanks to its gorgeous visuals and dreamlike atmosphere (and because it is a platformer). While there’s still no release date in sight, a demo has finally arrived on all major platforms! And after spending around 90 minutes with it, I’m more convinced than ever that this could become something truly special; for more reasons than one.
The first thing that stood out to me was the framing of the story. The demo lets you play through the opening section of the game, and even after experiencing only the beginning of the narrative, I can already feel that the full story is going to hit like a truck emotionally. The setup appears to involve a mother (Iva) telling the story of Goldman to her sick child (Alter) in a hospital. You never see everything directly spelled out, but you can hear the exhaustion and worry in Iva’s voice, and how overwhelming the situation has become for her. She doesn’t seem to have had the easiest time as a mother, either, and some of Alter’s comments quietly (and sometimes not so quietly) reinforce that impression. It creates an emotional undercurrent that hangs over the entire experience and will likely resonate with anyone who knows what it means to care for a child.
I also really enjoyed how all of this is woven into the game itself. Alter will sometimes literally interrupt the gameplay for a short back-and-forth exchange, giving you little bits of background information and more insight into the relationship between the two. At one point, something unexpected happened to Goldman and genuinely left me confused, only for Iva to reveal that she had simply made up that part of the story to make sure Alter was still listening. Moments like that are both funny and surprisingly charming, and they fit perfectly into Goldman’s magical world.
There is also a lot of dialogue throughout Goldman’s journey itself. Conversations are presented through comic-style vignettes that you can read at your own pace, with no full voice acting accompanying them beyond the occasional spoken “word” or soundbite here and there. Personally, I really enjoy this style of presentation free of urgency, and considering just how dialogue-heavy the game seems to be, I honestly think it’s the best choice.
Gameplay-wise, The Eternal Life of Goldman is a 2D platformer, though not one necessarily focused on precision or extremely demanding movement challenges. Instead, the emphasis seems to be on navigating environmental hazards, light puzzle-solving, and interacting with the world itself. Goldman is an elderly protagonist armed with a cane that can be customized with interchangeable parts, each granting different abilities and effects.
One detail I immediately appreciated is how seamless the system feels: you can swap each cane part individually and instantly without having to pause the game or open menus. It keeps everything flowing naturally and makes the mechanics feel fully integrated into the adventure itself. The cane serves as a pogo stick and is used to reach high platforms or stomp on enemies. The height of your jump can be influenced by swapping out the cane shaft, with one upgrade enabling even higher jumps off glowing mushrooms. The handle can be replaced with a hook that allows you to pull objects or hang from rings to cross gaps. I haven’t seen a replacement for the tip yet, but I can already see this three-piece cane system leading to some pretty wild combinations later on.
Combat, at least in the demo, takes a backseat. Most enemies function more as (moving) hazards or temporary platforms than traditional foes. Fire-spitting creatures and other threats are usually dispatched with a single pogo attack, while some enemies don’t seem dangerous at all and are simply… there. There are, however, a few more elaborate encounters, including fights against a bull and… a moaning pillar…? These moments revolve less around direct attacks and more around avoiding attack patterns until you can use the cane to pull on exposed rings. It’s a simple concept, but the encounters are well designed, and with additional cane parts introduced later, it’s easy to imagine these fights evolving with more mechanics and complexity.
What truly elevates the game for me more than anything else, though, is its world. The Eternal Life of Goldman feels like stepping directly into a child’s imagination: magical, whimsical, strange, and endlessly inventive. Every screen is packed with visual detail, from bizarre creatures and oversized plants to tiny environmental touches that constantly pull your attention.
Monkeys with jetpacks float above pillars waiting to throw spikes at you. A vendor’s shop is filled to the brim with colorful and strange objects and creatures. Weird, eyeless but fluffy beings dance in the background while you navigate platforming sections with streams of fire. Elsewhere, a mouse piloting a circular exosuit hurls blobs of pink goo through a flexible tube. The game is full of ideas like that: playful, surreal, and just unpredictable enough to constantly keep you curious. I’m not entirely sure why, but the entire experience gave me strong The Neverending Story vibes. Maybe that comparison only exists because the game taps into the same sense of wonder and dreamlike fantasy. It captures that feeling of being a kid again, daydreaming about impossible worlds and strange adventures. And I mean that in the most positive way possible.
Artistically, the game’s clearest influence comes from French-Belgian comics, especially the “ligne claire” style. The clean outlines, expressive character designs, and colorful environments all contribute to an aesthetic that feels timeless. That hand-crafted identity becomes even more significant after reading the developers’ stance on AI-generated art:
Using AI tools for art production in this game would pretty much oppose the whole idea of doing it this way in the first place. Therefore, it wasn’t really an option for us. No matter how technology develops right now, there is a place and audience for hand-made art.
And they’re just right. There absolutely is an audience for hand-made art, and I am most definitely part of it. That philosophy shines through in every frame of the demo. The game doesn’t just look beautiful, it genuinely feels created with passion and love for the craft.
According to the developers, The Eternal Life of Goldman is designed around a single roughly 12-hour playthrough, with optional areas that should require inventive exploration to discover. Honestly, after playing this demo, exploration is exactly what I’m looking forward to the most. The platforming mechanics seem solid and fun enough to carry a game of that length, but I do hope combat becomes more involved later on. The story promises emotional weight, but the main attraction here is the world itself: a place so imaginative and full of wonder that simply existing in it feels rewarding. If the final game can maintain the atmosphere and creativity shown in this opening section, The Eternal Life of Goldman could end up being something truly memorable. I, for one, genuinely can’t wait to get lost in its magical world.
