Antenna Dilemma signals intentions for 2026 release

• Announcements by Jack Allin
• Published:

Commercial follow-up to 2019 freeware prologue in development by the creator of Inspector Waffles

Following the release of Inspector Waffles: Early Days, indie developer Goloso Games is trading in cats (and canines) for cubes for a while, announcing plans to release an updated commercial version of Antenna Dilemma sometime next year. 

A "finicky grey cube" named C432632 lives in a world where almost everything is square, and life is heavily regimented by a domineering authority called The Dice. Which is just fine with the populace in a "media-driven society in which nothing else matters but TV." That is, until an unexpected antenna malfunction occurs an hour before C432632's favourite show. To fix it in time, he'll need to hustle down to the shop to get a replacement part and get up on the roof through the neighbour's place to make the repairs (both of which are easier said than done). But that's just the start of C432632's adventure, as he soon encounters a crashed spaceship and a pilot named Alfred who is... round? Even stranger, this "spherical alien" claims that the town is full of vivid colours, which of course can't be true because it's entirely black and white (and grey) for C432632. Still, Alfred is a peace ambassador who needs help getting to his meeting in the mountains with "traitors" on this planet deemed outcasts from society, so C432632 is forced "for the first time in his life ... to break out of his routine and set off, against his will, on an epic adventure."

As with its feline-themed predecessors, Antenna Dilemma features a distinctively blocky pixel art style, but that's largely where the similarities end. A side-scrolling adventure with simple point-and-click mouse controls, this game takes players through a "surprising dystopia" where people are not only being hypnotized by TV, but are actually having all the colour sucked out of their brains in the process. As such, the portions of the game exclusively featuring C432632 are presented entirely in monochrome (at least at first), while any segments involving Alfred are in full colour. Regardless of which protagonist you control, there will be plenty of items to find and puzzles to solve in a game inspired by the genre's Golden Age classics. There will also be a variety of "eccentric characters" to meet, including a "fitness-lover custom agent, a hangry security guard tortoise" and more. And of course, as any Inspector Waffles fan would expect, the unvoiced dialogue promises lots of "deadpan humour and (clever) puns." 

Originally conceived as an entry for AdventureJam 2018, the early version of Antenna Dilemma is available as a free playable prologue on Steam and itch.io for Windows, Mac and Linux, while the planned commercial expansion is due to arrive on Steam sometime before the end of 2026. In the meantime, Inspector Waffles: Early Days is ready to make its first appearance on consoles, launching for PlayStation 5, Xbox One and Series X|S, and Switch on September 12th. And if you should happen to be a Playdate early adopter, Goloso Games also teamed up with The Crimson Diamond's Julia Minamata in June for the release of an exclusive Inspector Waffles spin-off called Chance's Lucky Escape, this one starring a dog and inspired by "80s cartoons and absurdist comedy films."