For many who come to play Proteus, they may question whether it's a game at all, for here is a creation without explicit goals and where interaction is of but fleeting concern. Whether it is a game (indeed, whether it is in fact the anti-game) really doesn't matter, because definitions aside, Proteus remains a really rather lovely experience, one where the player is left without guidance to wander small islands, taking in the passing seasons. If Proteus, whose visuals hint at toddlers' first paintings, occupies any particular genre, it's that of an audio plaything. Moving around the game world, passing different plants, animals and terrain alters its delicately babbling soundscape with satisfying grace. It also courts a sense of mystery: to play is to try and understand what the game is – repetitive, placid, directionless – and those really are Proteus's strengths. Video gaming's own version of a stroll though the countryside.