With its first gameplay reveal during this year's Day of the Devs, indie developer Something We Made finally showed off the sequel to their inaugural title TOEM: A Photo Adventure from 2021. This charming photography adventure brought an easygoing monochrome adventure to hundreds of fans and left us wanting more. TOEM 2 opens with the same plucky character from the first title dropped into the world with little more than ambition and a trusty camera. While the first game focused on ascending the TOEM mountain, I didn't catch nary a whiff of the actual motivations and reasoning for the journey this time around. Instead, I was given free reign to meander around the idyllic village and solve a variety of problems for the townsfolk, from trying to retrieve a potion of liquid courage for a scaredy-cat knight to taking photos of three goats in order to permit a bridge troll to let me pass. In my twenty or so minutes of play, I was able to help solve the small-scale problems of four individuals and be rewarded with a stamp for my collection each time. The camera remains the player's best tool in the world of TOEM 2 with players not only able to use their photography skills to solve the plights of the ordinary person, but also a variety of attachments to use as tools in your adventure. The very first unlockable upgrade I earned for my camera was a hammer upgrade that let me smash through select stone blocks that hindered my progression. Using the hammer is just like the other attachments from the first TOEM: simply point and shoot (or in this case, tap on the rocks). It took a moment to realize that there's a small minigame to using the hammer with players having to tap out morse code with short and long taps in order to break those rocks. 2 of 9 One puzzle I encountered was take a 3x3 cube of blocks and chisel away to make a matching sculpture to the quest giver. Rather than trying to memorize the layout or run back and forth between the source sculpture and what I was crafting, I stopped to take photos of each side of the cube and use those to remember the requested shape. The developers from Something We Made seemed surprised that this was a valid solution to their puzzle and it was nice to see the camera being used as a note taking device as well as the tool you'll use to take pictures of every animal around the landscape. New to TOEM 2 is also the addition of jumping, and in true platformer style, I had to test it out by jumping around on top of any short wall I could find and try to scale up the world. I couldn't find any unintended out-of-bounds areas, but I was at least able to find some climbable areas that would lead to new hats for the playable character. With jumping now on the menu, I wouldn't be surprised if the Honk attachment gets phased out for TOEM 2. Sadly, there's still a fair bit of time before TOEM 2 is ready to be in players' hands. Developer Something We Made and publisher popagenda have penciled in this quaint photographical adventure for 2026 across a slew of unannounced consoles as well as PC. Deal of the Day

Peace Garden at UNESCO | © INFGM Located within the headquarters of UNESCO in Paris, the Peace Garden by Isamu Noguchi emerges not merely as a landscape installation but as a profound meditation on postwar diplomacy and cultural synthesis. Commissioned in the mid-1950s, the garden symbolizes the United Nations’ commitment to peace through mutual understanding and cultural dialogue. Peace Garden at UNESCO Technical Information Artist1-2: Isamu Noguchi Location: 7 Place de Fontenoy, 75352 Paris, France Client: Marcel Breuer / UNESCO Area: 2,400 m2 | 25,800 Sq. Ft. Project Year: 1958 Photographs: © INFGM and Flick Users, See Caption Details It should be a quiet, moving place. – Isamu Noguchi 3 Peace Garden at UNESCO Photographs © INFGM © INFGM © INFGM © INFGM © INFGM © INFGM © bbonthebrink, Flickr User © Patrice Todisco © bbonthebrink, Flickr User © bbonthebrink, Flickr User © Dalbera, Flckr user © Dalbera, Flckr user Park View Park View Context and Commission Noguchi, a Japanese-American sculptor and designer, was a poignant choice for the task. His biography embodies a convergence of East and West, as well as a lifelong engagement with public space as a vehicle for social commentary. By the time of his UNESCO commission, Noguchi had already engaged with landscape-scale sculptures, memorials, and playgrounds. The Peace Garden offered an opportunity to distill these threads into a singular work situated at the crossroads of global diplomacy. His selection was shaped by the broader architectural ethos of the UNESCO campus, designed by an international team including Marcel Breuer, Pier Luigi Nervi, and Bernard Zehrfuss. The ensemble called for a complementary but ideologically rich intervention, a space that could resonate as much with symbolic gravitas as with formal clarity. This garden was Noguchi’s first realized landscape design, and its execution was made possible through a personal introduction from Marcel Breuer, the chief architect of the UNESCO headquarters. Breuer not only facilitated the commission but also supported Noguchi’s experimental vision, which would challenge prevailing notions of diplomatic landscaping. Notably, the garden was completed in 1958 and spans approximately 2,400 square meters. It was constructed by renowned Kyoto-based master gardener Sano Toemon, marking a cross-cultural collaboration between modernist sculpture and traditional Japanese craftsmanship. Design Philosophy and Symbolic Intent Noguchi approached the Peace Garden as both sculptor and spatial thinker. He resisted creating a traditional memorial or a didactic allegory of peace. Instead, he crafted a contemplative void, a space that, through its absence of overt narrative, invited personal reflection and multiple interpretations. Drawing on the vocabulary of Japanese rock gardens and Zen traditions, Noguchi created a space of abstract expression that nonetheless maintained universal accessibility. The garden is composed of roughly hewn granite stones, a central water basin, and minimal vegetation. Each element is carefully positioned, creating an orchestrated tension between natural materiality and deliberate composition. This spatial language evokes notions of impermanence, balance, and introspection. The garden does not dictate how peace should be understood; rather, it sets a stage for experiencing peace as a spatial and emotional condition. In Noguchi’s words, the garden was to be “a quiet, moving place” rather than a monument. While inspired by Japanese garden typologies, particularly the stroll garden (池泉回遊式), Noguchi chose not to replicate tradition. Instead, he abstracted and reinterpreted elements such as Mt. Horai rock formations, stepping stones, and a crouching basin. These forms subtly allude to symbolic motifs without prescribing a singular reading. Noguchi negotiated directly with the Japanese government to secure donations of ten tons of stone and plant materials including camellias, maples, cherry trees, and bamboo. This act itself underscored the garden’s role as a diplomatic gesture, embedding it with botanical references to Japanese identity while maintaining a universal design language. Material and Spatial Composition Set at the base of the UNESCO building, the Peace Garden establishes a counterpoint to the architectural massing surrounding it. Its recessed layout forms a kind of spatial cloister, shielding visitors from the city’s rhythm and inviting a slower, more inward pace. The materials, chiefly unpolished granite, gravel, and water, speak to both permanence and mutability. The granite stones, irregular yet intentional in placement, recall tectonic forms and ancient spiritual markers. The central water feature introduces subtle movement and sound, enhancing the sensory richness of the space. The garden’s compositional core is its sculptural use of stone, each placement a spatial decision echoing both tectonic memory and sculptural intentionality. Noguchi collaborated on-site with Sano Toemon, whose craftsmanship adapted in real-time to the artist’s rapidly evolving vision. According to Sano, it was only after intense on-site dialogue and shared experience that he could fully comprehend and execute Noguchi’s aesthetic strategy, a testament to the garden’s improvisational and relational genesis. Spatially, the garden is organized not around pathways but around moments. There is no linear procession or axial symmetry; instead, it offers a field of relationships. Voids and solids, shadows and reflections, horizontality and vertical interruptions all work together to create a space that must be experienced slowly and from multiple vantage points. The absence of overt hierarchy in the layout allows users to construct their own narratives. It is a non-prescriptive space in which silence, texture, and light become the principal mediums of meaning. Peace Garden at UNESCO Plans Floor Plan | © Isamu Noguchi Floor Plan | © Isamu Noguchi Peace Garden at UNESCO Image Gallery About Isamu Noguchi Isamu Noguchi (1904–1988) was a Japanese-American sculptor, landscape architect, and designer renowned for his fusion of Eastern and Western aesthetics. Trained under Constantin Brâncuși and deeply influenced by Japanese traditions, Noguchi’s work spanned sculpture, furniture, stage sets, and public spaces. His practice was rooted in a belief that art should be integrated into everyday life, often blurring the boundaries between art, architecture, and landscape. Notable for his minimal yet emotionally resonant forms, Noguchi’s legacy includes iconic works such as the Noguchi Table, the UNESCO Peace Garden in Paris, and the Isamu Noguchi Garden Museum in New York. Credits and Additional Notes Style: Stroll Garden, Contemporary Japanese Garden Main Contractor: Sano Toemon, in collaboration with Uetō Zōen Listening to Stone: The Art and Life of Isamu Noguchi by Hayden Herrera Torres, Ana Maria. Isamu Noguchi: Studies in Space. Tokyo: Marumo Publishing, 2000. pp. 96–109. Sasaki, Yōji. “What Isamu Noguchi Left Behind.” Japan Landscape, no. 16, Process Architecture, 1990, p. 87. Treib, Marc. Noguchi in Paris: The UNESCO Garden. San Francisco: William Stout Publishers and UNESCO Publishing, 2004. Overseas Japanese Gardens Database. “UNESCO Garden.” Accessed May 2025.