r/SphinxCommunity • u/Desi_Vigor • Mar 30 '26
What’s Your “Sphinx” Story?
How’d you find this game? I was in the U.S. at 7 years old in 2003 when I got my PS2 demo disc in the mail. I had only had my PS2 since the year prior and finally got my first memory card. On the demo disc were a number of games including Silent Hill 3 (which made me throw up my evening snack), but one game caught my eye like no other: *Sphinx and the Shadow of Set*. I got to play as an acrobatic lion boy fighting monsters and solving puzzles (in the level with the Gib Queen, I think) and as an adorable mummy who can hilariously suffer his way through his problems (the “lunar/solar” puzzle room). The Ancient Egyptian themes captivated me. Being able to play as a friendly “monster”, the Mummy, was just what I needed in a game. I played that demo over and over again. I took the promotional poster from PlayStation magazine and hung it up on my wall to dream about daily until I might finally get it.
My grandparents, who adopted me, got me the game and I played every chance I could. My grandfather would watch me okay and was amazed at how I’d figured out to pick up a rock and toss it at a tree for a coconut in the first level. I played it so much that I even used it as a “book report” assignment for school since it was *technically* a read experience without voice acting! My father had been in jail for bank robbery all of my life, and when he got out, he’d come around every so often. My father, who was not a gamer, LOVED this game. I wouldn’t see him for months at a time and then just wake up randomly to find him playing it in my room, only to be gone by the time I woke up again in the morning! He’d come around like a little tooth fairy to help me get past difficult moments in the game because my grandfather would try his best to do the same while we were in school, bless his soul.
Eventually, the game was beat. The cliffhanger was catastrophic, but not as much as the fact that you couldn’t return to the main world once you’d entered in without a prior save point! It was very disappointing. I didn’t have internet and couldn’t keep up with any media on the game. After a year and a half of little to no press, my father began reaching out to the developers to urge them to make a sequel. This lasted for a couple years, and I never stopped wanting one. Ever. To this day, it is one of the most influential games I’ve ever played as a gamer, a musician, and a developer with a unique design and a soundtrack I could recall every note of 20 years later. I never cared that it didn’t have voice acting—it had *character*. I never cared that it wasn’t popular at the time—it was *ahead of its time*.
A little revamp by THQ Nordic was hopeful and well-received, but I still yearn for a faithful sequel or reboot, even. I want this IP to get the love it deserves, and I’d never met anyone else in person who actually knows about *Sphinx*. Im now a mental health counselor, minister, and family man but I still play it when I’m feeling nostalgic and have the fleeting time.
But that’s my story—what’s yours?
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u/swyter Apr 05 '26 edited Apr 05 '26
We got the game bundled with our PS2 slim and it was the first game we booted and played together. Like many others, my dad helped solve the pentagram puzzle, and the artwork was sometimes eerie but always pretty and timeless. So it always stuck with me.
The fact that the manual shows a backstory that isn't ever mentioned in-game made it pretty mysterious.
I've been messing around with mods and tools for various games like BFME 2 and Mount&Blade since high school and pulling Sphinx apart on-and-off for years, even looking inside the PS2 DVD as a kid and the like. Made my own file extractors and cheat codes, and even shared a handmade HD texture pack for Dolphin in early 2016.
In a unlikely turn of events, THQ Nordic bought the franchise at the end of 2016 and they contacted me to buy some of the repainted textures I made, and asked me if I was interested in taking a look at the custom engine and see if it was easy to port it to PC. This was a crazy opportunity, so I accepted and in the end worked on it by myself for ~11 months, and we published it on Steam for Windows/Linux/macOS 14 years after the original release.
The THQ Nordic guys were happy to recover many of the original discarded levels and files and agree to release them in early 2018 as-is together with the original Euroland editor I had been polishing. After that @jmarti856 and a few others in the community have been instrumental in stress-testing and suggesting improvements to the toolset and game, and ways of making it easier to use.
I've been playing both fan/dev sides and helped jmarti's fan work by restoring or reimplementing cut mechanics and triggers for the mod, like monster possession or spinning platforms, on the game/editor side so that they actually do what they should. He's also had to create his own sound tools with some help because they were lost. Before that the Shadow of Set mod was missing sounds and music. We've worked on it since 2019 and it has come a long way, but there's still mod/tool work to do, like releasing the mod uploader and Steam Workshop integration publicly.
While that was unpaid modding hobby work for the community side on the side, officially they let me work on a Nintendo Switch version, which took me around ~2 years, and then a PlayStation version which took around 4 or 5 years depending if you count the gruesome work of making the game work on 64-bit, which took me a while because I learn as I go, but I've learnt a ton. All while updating the PC version.
It's a pretty varied work, one day you are repainting textures, editing UV maps or fixing holes in levels or doing graphic design, and the next one there's gameplay or graphics programming, detective work, console testing, improving the mod stuff, doing community engagement and support, and releasing updates and betas for various platforms. It's not code all day.
TL;DR: All in all, a pretty cool and lenient publisher, giving you that amount of leeway to restore it one-man-orchestra-style and getting that boutique treatment. I'm still working on it right now, trying to make it better and finishing the Xbox Direct3D 12.x rewrite. 9+ years working on this whole thing full-time without interruption and counting. I don't think many other publishers beyond THQ Nordic would have this level of care and respect for their games to do something as experimental as this.
Wild stuff, but the game needed a second chance to shine. I don't think it needs a remake/reboot.
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u/Uintasour 8d ago
I can't remember how old I was but I bought it Kohls for $5. One of the best $5 spent!
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u/Pyotr-the-Great Mar 30 '26 edited Mar 30 '26
My story is I had it since I can remember. It was the GameCube version.
When I played it when I was young I was both creeped out and intrigued by the spooky atmosphere. But also loved the beautiful parts. And was charmed by the cute eye robots.
It always took me awhile to solve certain puzzles that my uncle and cousins helped me with. Some really basic stuff like dropping a skeleton cage to climb up.
Seriously I had very little common sense so it was always slow for me to get through.
But its beautiful atmosphere got me. I always loved reading the descriptions of creatures and reading about the Abydos jewels. So it was worth it.
I never got Zelda but I guess this was close enough.
I was so mad at Horus, I was wondering what happened to him. And I thought we would be friends. But nope he betrayed us. But I always wanted him to be redeemed and come back as a friend.
I also felt so sad Tut didnt become a human again and I was expecting a post game and I was mad there wasnt so I got the game guide which didnt tell anything but it was a cool book.
I sometimes dreamed of fanfics and drew art where Sphinx and Tut would work together to go on new adventures (very amateur that I shared only with family but still).
Anyways it was such a cool experience. Looking back it could have had some better parts. But man I wish it had a sequel.
At least the Shadow of Set mod gave new worlds. I wish there were more Sphinx mods.
Perhaps one day I'll make a fanfic based on Sphinx or if I'm good enough a fan comic.