Hymn to the Earless God Hands-On Preview

Five years ago, the very first game I reviewed for RPGFan was a little indie game called Jimmy and the Pulsating Mass. And let me tell you, it was a doozy. You play as an 8-year-old exploring his dreamworld, trying to take down the “Pulsating Mass” threatening him, his family, and the entire world. It brilliantly captures the beauty and terror you might expect a child to experience in their sleep and is steeped in remarkable empathy for its characters. The fact that this charming, hilarious, and heartbreaking game features satisfying and challenging turn-based combat, excellent art, and more side quests than many AAA games made it a total home run. If you have access to a computer, you should go check it out. Right now.

Maybe the most impressive part is that the game was almost entirely designed by one man, Kasey Ozymy, using RPGMaker. The engine sometimes hampered Ozymy’s ambitions, even if he found clever ways to work around that. When I heard about Ozymy’s next project, Hymn to the Earless God—developed with a team under his new studio, Starseed Games—would be even more ambitious, I was all in. A Kickstarter for the new title launches today, along with a demo, which I got to check out a few days early; I’m more than impressed by where he and his team are going this time.

From the opening menu with its purple hues and grotesque art, you can tell Hymn to the Earless God isn’t a copy of Jimmy. Ozymy showed he could explore the dark, creepy, and morbid in Jimmy’s nightmares, but this time that’s the whole world. Here, you explore Gloom, an alien world full of insects that devour each other and fight for domination. 

In the full game, you can choose among four protagonists, all with unique stories that apparently impact each other. But in the demo, you can only choose between two of them: Pox, a member of tribe of creatures where the weak are discarded and consumed (I told you this game was messed up), and Capella, the last member of her tribe who is the “chosen one” fated to give birth to God. 

You don’t get to play as either character for very long (20-30 minutes a pop, depending on how much you explore), but in this short time, I can already see the variety of tonal modes Ozymy is evoking here. Playing as Pox, you open in a mine. Once he’s been worked to death, he almost gets consumed by his fellow Verrick after being tossed away down the mine shaft. Pox vows to become the strongest of his clan, so you have to fight your way out of the dark dungeon while consuming your enemies along the way. On the other hand, Capella’s playthrough places you farther into her story as she explores a colorful field with two of her followers, and she pulls them off course to help a bug in need. 

Needless to say, the two protagonists’ stories feel very different, but the storytelling and writing is equally strong in both, often relying on clever visuals to help us feel the emotions Ozymy wants to convey. It’s a strong start, and I’m excited to see what he does with the other two routes.

While it’s too early to say much about the story in Hymn to the Earless God, I can say that the gameplay, especially the combat, is right up my alley. Enemies appear on the field, and if you “surprise” them, you can take the upper hand in combat. Battles are turn-based again here, and Ozymy’s penchant for giving you a ton of options has been turned up to 11. The turn order, determined by agility, appears on the left side of the screen for each round. If your agility is high enough, you can take an additional turn. Even in the early game, you contend with many debuffs and spells that interact with each other. For example, I managed to inflict a boss with “sleep” and then fired off a spell that does 300% damage while the enemy is sleeping. You generate TP each turn, too, which you can use to execute special moves, and characters have passive bonuses exclusive to them. 

There are many other options and features that I didn’t get to see, but if you read the Kickstarter update, it gives you a complete rundown. Without exaggeration, I absolutely love the combat so far. I’m honestly hard-pressed to think of many other RPGs with this flexibility. If you’ve played Jimmy, you already know Ozymy has a gift for excellent combat, but if you haven’t and you like challenging and strategic turn-based combat, I think this will satisfy.

One unexpected boon in Hymn to the Earless God is the enormous step up in visual quality. The art style was great in Jimmy, but its RPGMaker roots clearly held it back. Not here. Hymn to the Earless God looks like a full-blown SNES/GBA game, complete with smooth and fluid animations while retaining the stunning, often disgusting art employed in Jimmy. The new look makes exploring the detailed dungeons a joy. It sounds great, too, with a variety of 16-bit-inspired tunes ranging from the creepy to the propulsive. It’s worth checking out the samples on the Kickstarter page since they give you a pretty good feel for what’s on offer.

There’s no question that Jimmy and the Pulsating Mass evoked EarthBound, and Ozymy is one of the few developers who understood that game well enough to create an appropriate homage while carving its own path. Hymn to the Earless God clearly takes inspiration from the early greats; it’s not just a homage. If the brief demo is any indication, this game is going to boldly display a unique identity. With the creativity already on display, along with everything I didn’t get to see in this demo (multiple playthroughs, hiring mercenaries who behave erratically, more of that sweet, sweet combat), I think we could be in for something special, and I’m incredibly excited for more.

Hymn to the Earless God is currently targeting an August 2026 release date. If any of this sounds interesting to you, be sure to check out the Kickstarter, which closes on September 29th, for a lot of details and the opportunity to support the campaign if you’d like!