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This is just a very small sketch I made after creating the first Submachine back in 2005. (Yes, 21 years ago).

I was exploring ways to expand this series. Sometimes you have good ideas, sometimes you miss the mark.

This version was scrapped before going any further as I recognized that Submachine without it’s essential mechanic of moving between rooms is just not the same.

The rest is history.

Enjoy!

buy this book | kup komiks

trailer | unboxing

pencils done | ink done | watercolor done | jak powstaje okładka?

sample pages | wallpaper

Panaceum to lek na wszystko. Uniwersalne rozwiązanie wszelkich problemów medycznych. Album opowiada historię wynalazcy, który łapie słowa siatką na motyle. Jego wizja jest ogromna, a postrzeganie ograniczone. Czy uda mu się dokonać przełomu i rozwiązać wszystkie problemy tego świata, nie tylko te medyczne? Dwunasty tom serii Rewolucje, zatytułowany “Panaceum” to album otwierający fazę drugą serii. Jednocześnie to początek nowej rewolucyjnej trylogii, której kolejne tomy są zatytułowane “Panoptykon” i “Panteoria”.

recenzje:

•  Wombai
• Tomasz Pstrągowski w Niezatapialnych
• Perspektywa Komiksowa
• Gostek od Komiksów
• Mamoń na WAK-u
• Uleczka na Sztukaterze

wywiad:

• Halo Komiks, Radio Lublin

Fans of Mateusz Skutnik’s unique vision will feel right at home in this compellingly twisted four-game compilation.

Daymare Town began life as a series of free Flash games released from 2007 to 2013, developed by Mateusz Skutnik alongside his cult hit Submachine series. After the latter’s stellar commercial glow-up earlier this decade, it seemed a no-brainer that Daymare Town would follow eventually. Now it’s here, with all four entries neatly integrated into a single cohesive package with new puzzles and characters, fully redrawn art, and a complete soundtrack by composer Alex Voytenko. Whether or not you’ve played the originals, this omnibus edition represents Skutnik’s definitive version, and as has become the norm for him, it’s a jaw-droppingly beautiful blend of exploration, scavenger hunting, and puzzle-solving that rewards patience, care, and attention to detail (albeit in sometimes Herculean volumes).

The game begins with a short spoken preamble from your character, a wild-haired man with no name or apparent backstory: “Our darkness is fading. As the fog encroaches, there’s nothing we can do but leave this town, forever…” These lines, the game’s only voiced dialogue, are the last semblance of an authoritative take on what’s happening in this world. Immediately afterward, the man exits to a plaza of the titular town, with no directive except to find his way beyond the city limits and no direction for how to do so except to keep his eyes open. The perspective shifts to first-person and control passes to the player; from here, your objectives are simply to see, do, and progress as best you can.

The first thing you’re liable to notice is the absence of color. Nearly everything on-screen is either black or beige, with grabbable items appearing in white to distinguish them from the backgrounds. (There’s a hard mode that turns this setting off; it otherwise plays identically.) The effect, in concert with the deliberate sketch-like character of Skutnik’s pen-and-ink illustrations, is of having fallen into the pages of some forgotten Edwardian fantasy tome. This is our world as glimpsed in the moments between waking and sleeping, or reflected just over one’s shoulder in a warped and foggy mirror. There’s an Alice in Wonderland quality to your wanderings, with bizarre creatures and surreal situations materializing in full and sudden flower without warning, context, or attempt to justify them: birds talk; fishermen cast their lines into empty air; paintings invite you to enter and walk around.

Some of the town’s inhabitants are recognizably human, but many aren’t. Hairy, large-eyed critters abound, huddling in nooks and alcoves or lingering alone or in pairs behind closed doors. Others appear variously reptilian, mammalian or even plant-like. (You’ll recognize one group of neighbors immediately if you’ve played Skutnik’s Slice of Sea.) There are whispers of giants and dragons lurking somewhere in the mist, and of stranger things than those. The imagery exists somewhere at the intersection of Mervyn Peake’s sketches, James Thurber’s cartoons, and the charcoal drawings of Odilon Redon, with messy, unruly silhouettes rendered nonetheless comprehensible by Skutnik’s meticulous precision in line and point. As befits the material, what we see seems always to have materialized from within a thickening fog. From start to finish, it’s never anything short of breathtaking to look at.

The fog, of course, is one of the main topics of discussion for those still in town, and you’ll hear many rumors about it in your travels—that it leaves nothing but empty space in its wake; that it claimed another two houses yesterday; that there’s nowhere left to escape to. There are no clear answers, only guesses and snatches of uncertain hearsay; society in town hasn’t quite broken all the way down, but it’s circling the drain, and those who remain have lost the will to work together in charting a way forward. Certain institutions keep operating—the Museum of Modern Art still charges admission, and St. George’s Hospital ministers to patients even while doing a lively trade in illicit drug sales—but others, like a grisly meat market or a tumbledown library, have been left to the scavengers.

The town’s decrepitude means guideposts are few and far between. Some characters will engage you in conversation, at which point a simple menu lets you select responses until they run out, but most people only deliver a single line of dialogue when you click or hover over them. Their speech tends toward the indirect and allusive, as do the various signs and graffiti scattered about. You’ll often have to speak to several characters to get a clear picture of your next goal or destination. Other times the game leaves it entirely up to you to keep going until you run up against an obstacle and deduce that it’s what you should focus on.

The more you explore, the more you’ll learn about the town, its inhabitants, and their efforts to either escape the fog or accept it. As oblique as the execution is, there’s a definite story to follow from beginning to end. You’ll learn next to nothing about your own character’s history beyond his desire to leave town, but he emerges in conversations as a curious if somewhat withdrawn observer of his world, living lightly while treating others with a tired sort of compassion. How the locals respond to him will teach you as much as what they say: some are lost and frightened; others relish company of any kind; many carry on in a resigned, weary state between denial and acceptance. The thought of such a fate seems to impel your character to seek an exit as much as the oncoming fog does.

Movement is node-based, with a context-sensitive cursor that points in the direction you’ll exit. A hand cursor indicates an item to be picked up, while a magnifying glass takes you in for a closer look at something. An indicator appears over hotspots where you can use an item from your inventory, which you access by right-clicking and selecting an object to drag into the environment. There are also many “invisible” hotspots, where secret optional actions are possible if you experiment with what you have (say, by using that hammer you found on a fragile-looking vase).

On top of this, there are various collectibles scattered throughout each of the four chapters for you to hunt down if the mood strikes, along with optional arcade minigames you can access through cabinets hidden around town. These explain their controls and objectives upfront, and they’re mostly fun and simple diversions—a fog-themed Space Invaders clone, for instance, or a game where you avoid incoming birds as you fly a kite—but there’s also a surprisingly elaborate puzzle-platformer that could be classed as a mini-adventure in its own right, which unlocks a fantastic musical track by singer Cat Jahnke.

While your tasks tend to be straightforward—taking missing objects back to where they belong, collecting puzzle pieces to open locks, finding something to trade a character whose item you need—the challenge often lies in just identifying and tracking down what you’re actually looking for. I’d estimate there are more than a thousand screens to cover, each one chock full of elaborate visual detail with no color to break it up. Even in relatively uncluttered rooms, I sometimes overlooked what turned out to be important details. Still, this sets up a number of immensely satisfying a-ha! moments in which you’ll suddenly recognize, at long last, the one element missing from a puzzle that’s nagged at you for hours.

Everywhere you look, there’s more to see and do; it’s almost never boring, but next steps are rarely obvious. The first screen alone has eleven exits, and only some of them are apparent right away. There are many, many transition points throughout the game that you’ll only discover by carefully moving your cursor and paying attention to where it points. The same is true of hotspots, which may not distinguish themselves from other background elements. Skutnik’s art is painstakingly detailed, but it’s hard to tell at a glance what’s there because you need it and what’s just a part of the picture.

All of this is in keeping with the game’s intentions. The focus is as much on experiencing the environment to the fullest and moving on once you’ve had your fill as it is on making tangible progress. In its storytelling, puzzle solving, and exploration, the game’s watchword seems to be delayed gratification. It’s especially apparent in the sheer amount of surprises and hidden interactions secreted about the place for you to discover; they’re never necessary to progress, but they reward experimentation and encourage you to adopt a playful “I wonder what happens if…” attitude.

That said, the game world you’ll traverse across the four combined episodes is huge, and when you factor in all the secrets concealed beneath the surface, there’s actually more of it than it initially seems. If you don’t like retracing your steps while pondering the small details you might have missed, Daymare Town will probably drive you bonkers. There’s a world map, but it’s not very detailed, and while a system of portals lets you warp from one region to another, you have to find and activate each one, with several tucked away in unassuming crevices that you might not notice at first glance. Here even the fast-travel system requires time and patience to use properly.

Even if you love what the game is doing, there’s just so much of it that at a certain point it starts to feel exhausting. The environments are beautiful, but when you’ve spent roughly eight hours traversing hundreds of cluttered, colorless slides, things have a way of blending together in your memory. Considering how easy it already is to overlook inconspicuous but crucial screen exits, this can turn navigation from a challenge into a nightmare. I very much wanted to see more of the game’s unique world, but I found myself longing for a bit less space to see it in.

Still, in a game about searching for an exit that might not exist, the sensation of bewildered overwhelm feels not only appropriate but intentional. Every choice—the monochrome visuals, the ominous atmosphere, the mournful, desolate piano score—feels deliberately calculated to inspire those very feelings. Of course, when you’re wandering in circles without a clue where to go next, it might not make much difference to know that it’s on purpose. If that means Daymare Town occasionally feels like a victim of its own success, though, then “success” is still very much the operative word.
Final Verdict

Daymare Town isn’t a game you play to unwind, or that you can spend a casual half-hour with while waiting for the oven to beep. It’s deep, dark, dense, and daunting; even if you enjoy dancing to its tune, it might tire you out after a while. All the same, it’s hard to pull yourself away once you’ve started exploring its many nooks and crannies. The tantalizingly bizarre world is so captivating—with its chaotically beautiful artwork; its subtle, mysterious narrative; and its wealth of secrets waiting to be discovered—that even when you aren’t sure what to do, you’re glad for the chance to find out.

Hot take: 85%

If you can get on its distinctively weird, oppressive wavelength and stay there, you’ll find Mateusz Skutnik’s Daymare Town second to none in terms of atmosphere, aesthetics, and ability to keep you clicking just to find out what the impossibly imaginative setting will show you next.

Pros

• Beautifully strange and compelling visual aesthetic
• Art, music, and gameplay unite to create an atmosphere of mingled wonder, intrigue, and lonesome foreboding
• Packed full of things to do, see, and figure out, including secrets and optional challenges galore
• Rewards for patient exploration are incredibly gratifying

Cons

• So big and busy, with so little signposting, that it’s easy to get lost, overwhelmed, and/or exhausted
• Requires so MUCH patience that it can easily become frustrating

Will Aickman on adventuregamehotspot.com

Meanwhile, 10 days later all watercolors are done.
There might be something to this american method, I don’t think I’ve ever finished a book so quickly. It took 40 days all together. I think it’s the hyper focus on pencils > ink > color of the entire book at once instead of jumping between these three on each page separately. All that’s left now is the worst and most difficult part – the cover…

Meanwhile, 10 days later entire 46-page comic book is inked. Frankly speaking, these Parallel Pens are total gamechangers. I’ve never inked an album so quick. It’s not that I’m literally drawing faster, that’s impossible, it’s just that drawing with an ink nib requires constant dipping, which is not the thing with these. That continuous motion of drawing let me stay in flow state for longer each session. Living proof of being able to learn something new everyday even at my ripe, old age.

I’m changing my comic book technique once again. This is the entire “Revolutions” album sketched out in pencil. All 46 pages. Now I’m moving on to inking it all, after that comes watercoloring. I think this is the american way or something.

If you’re here, you already know what this is. Welcome and congratulations on finding your way through AI slop to this 100% human-created post!

Here we look both ways: into the past and into the future.

Let’s begin with what was planned for 2025:

Plan A
Fulfillment of the Submachine Card Game Kickstarter campaign.
This means sending out the game to all backers on Kickstarter. This will be the most crucial moment for me, as with any game release – you playing the game is the most interesting and yet unknown factor in the possible further development of this game. If it flops and you don’t like the game play – well, we’ll have a piece of Submachine merch on our shelves. If the game is good – we’re looking at at least one expansion and possible reprints with graphical redesigns. Hard to tell right now. Let’s reconvene next year and compare notes. As it stands now – we’re waiting for the factory to send us the finished product.

Notes compared. The fulfillment went rather smoothly in the spring of 2025 and then the game went straight into general sale in my shop. I still have some stock to sell, so the expansion and reprints are not happening right now. However, after revising cut content there is about 24 to 32 new cards that could potentially institute a game expansion. These cards would be new rooms with more alternate passages and new function cards to add more functionality to the game play. It’s on the side burner, just waiting for its time I guess.

Plan B
Daymare Town remaster release.
Well, duh. I’m finishing the last batch of original backgrounds as we speak and moving onto animations, puzzles and imagining expansion with new locations, new puzzles, new daymare folk, etc. Again, can’t say more, because spoilers. The additional stuff territory is not to be discussed before game release. I also won’t be sharing any release date yet, as I honestly have no idea. The game takes its shape, but how much expanded will it end up – I don’t know yet.

Yup. That happened. Game was expanded, enlarged, widened, beautified and released. I even managed to release a separate soundtrack for this game on Steam with the help of Alex Voytenko. Each new game – something new is learned. It was indeed wise of me to not set any release date a year ago, since the Submachine Card Game fulfillment jumped in unexpectedly and took a lot of time and energy to finish and send out to everybody. I thought I would release Daymare Town in the spring, but alas, it was released in autumn. That’s multiple-projects-at-once method of creativity right there for you. You can’t release a card game without postponing a Steam game.

Plan C
Revolutions 12: Panaceum.
Well, to be honest, I’m not so sure about this one. I want to draw this comic book, I really do, I just don’t know when exactly it will happen. It will be my return to the Revolutions comic book series. As the last entry was published back in 2018, it’s high time to revive this series. But it completely depends on how long finishing the Daymare Town remaster will take. Which, as I just said – is completely unpredictable at this point. Let’s just wait and see.

The state of this comic book at the end of the year is as follows: sketches complete, story complete, all storyboards complete, page layouts complete, new watercolor paper and ink bought and ready to go. All that’s left is actually drawing it, which is my main goal in January and February of this year. But that’s a story for another day. Things be moving, just off-screen for now.

~~

There are also things that happened outside of the yearly plan, two of them to be exact, not sure which one is more awesome for you guys.

Submachine the Engine.
Yeah, I know, after the release of Daymare Town I should’ve taken a break or something, but what can you do. If your brain is firing at 120% of its capacity, you can’t just turn it off with a snap of a finger, so I started developing my next game – Submachine the Engine. And, what’s more interesting, its level editor which I’m planning to release along the main game for you guys to create your own levels within the game. I’d say this is the most ambitious project, especially on the game coding side, but it’s looking good so far. Again, slow burn, nothing to rite home about just yet, but it exists. In its current form we have a rooms grid editor in which you can create, well, a grid of connected rooms. Next up – room editor, in which you’ll be able to set up the design of each room separately.

Submachine Comic Book.
At the tail end of the year I announced a new project that combines both games and comic books. I haven’t told you this sooner, but I got the initial idea for this book in the spring. Since then I was slowly, very slowly writing the story in my head. As you probably know, writing stories in my case takes a long time, for example, this Revolutions comic book that I’m drawing right now was first imagined back in 2010. Yes, 15 years ago. But do not worry, Submachine Comic Book will surely take less time to complete.

However, these two projects have really just begun, so let’s look ahead at 2026.

Plan A

Revolutions 12: Panaceum.
Right now I’m trying to get into the flow state of drawing and painting. Once I’m there, it will be smooth sailing until the end of February, at which point this book will be ready to be published this spring. Fingers crossed.

Plan B

Preparing a Kickstarter campaign for Submachine Comic Book.
Before attempting the creation of this book I have to know for sure how many of you want it really. This is why the Kickstarter enters the picture. Just as with the card game before, it will let me estimate the demand for it. Once the campaign is succesful I’ll know I’m not creating into the void and that somebody will buy and read this. Then the project will catch wind in its sails and take off. So stay tuned for any information from me about upcoming campaign. I plan on some sweet rewards for you guys, including original sketches and actual original pages from the book. Milestones will include more pages of the book. Right now it’s set to be a 46-page story, but I can expand it to 54 or 62 pages. I’m known for my ability to stretch story on more pages than initially expected. As for the timeline, let me think, late spring, early summer? Like, June?… Fingers crossed.

Plan C

Continuous development of Submachine the Engine.
Going back to the development side – this game will be in development in the background, slowly but surely becoming my most complex creation ever. All thanks to donations of Patreon, which is my main income source for game development. Hopefully I’ll be able to get back to the heights of my intellect to actually make this level editor thing a reality. Fingers crossed.

~~

So yes, this year is a bit Submachine-heavy, but I don’t think anyone will complain about this. :D

See you guys next year!