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# Amanita Design built a dystopian city out of real cardboard, then digitized it
- URL: https://www.killscreen.com/amanita-design-built-a-dystopian-city-out-of-real-cardboard-then-digitized-it/
- Published: 2026-08-13T04:00:02.000Z
- Updated: 2026-08-13T04:00:02.000Z
- Description: Every set in the anti-authoritarian adventure was cut and glued in paper first—a handcrafted city where the Leader rules through loudspeakers.
- Author: Kill Screen Staff
- Tags: amanita design, adventure game, constructivism, dystopia, IGF, Phonopolis

*Phonopolis* is a game about being told what to think, built out of the most obedient material there is: paper does whatever you fold it into. Amanita Design constructed every set physically in cardboard, then digitized the models into 3D—the studio calls it a departure from its hand-drawn past, but what it really produces is [digital stop-motion](https://www.instagram.com/p/DXxoLnPsVAo/?ref=killscreen.com), a city you could imagine knocking over with your hand.

The city deserves it. In *Phonopolis* you play Felix, a garbage collector in a metropolis wallpapered with "amplions"—loudspeakers broadcasting the Leader's subliminal commands. Felix gets hold of headphones that mute the signal, and the game becomes a quiet campaign of sabotage against the Leader's pursuit of the Absolute Tone, a frequency that would end disagreement for good. The visual language is late-1920s Soviet constructivism, with futurism and suprematism in the seams—propaganda's own aesthetic turned against the propagandist, in cardboard.

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From the **Phonopolis* launch trailer — [full trailer on Steam](https://store.steampowered.com/app/1206070/Phonopolis/?ref=killscreen.com)

The game took the [IGF award for Excellence in Visual Art](https://igf.com/archive-2024/?ref=killscreen.com) back in 2024, two years before anyone could buy it. It began outside the studio entirely as a project by Hammeware that caught Amanita founder Jakub Dvorský's eye and moved in-house in 2016—which makes it a decade-long build. It [released May 20](https://www.gematsu.com/2026/04/phonopolis-launches-may-20?ref=killscreen.com) on Steam, GOG, and the Epic Games Store.

Amanita's whole catalog has been drifting toward the physical for years. When *Samorost 3* shipped a physical edition, [we noted how badly that world wanted to be touched](https://www.killscreen.com/samorost-3s-physical-version-brings-games-world-closer/) and *Samorost* itself began with photographed organic matter. *Phonopolis* completes the loop: the handmade isn't a texture pack on top of the game, it's the argument. A dystopia about mass-produced thought, made one glued seam at a time.

![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/25/84/2584b75d-4bd6-4cce-8259-f1d1c65abbb5/content/images/2026/08/phonopolis-g1.jpg)

![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/25/84/2584b75d-4bd6-4cce-8259-f1d1c65abbb5/content/images/2026/08/phonopolis-g2.jpg)

![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/25/84/2584b75d-4bd6-4cce-8259-f1d1c65abbb5/content/images/2026/08/phonopolis-g3.jpg)

**Phonopolis* (via Amanita Design)