Antichamber

When I first started Antichamber up, I noticed that the screen resolution was too low, so I hit Escape to open a menu and look for options. Nothing happened. I hit it again, and still nothing. Temporarily giving up, I moved the mouse around -- and that's when I discovered that I was in-game, in a room that also served as the options menu, with options projected onto the wall as clickable buttons. This room is an apt introduction to, and metaphor for, Antichamber as a whole: it subverts your expectations at every turn, but is designed so well, that you're bound to figure it out.

Antichamber is a first-person platform-puzzler in the vein of Portal and Q.U.B.E., where you must move objects, flip switches, and surmount obstacles to get from room to room. But where its peers are content to (mostly) play in the world of Euclidian space and Newtonian physics, Antichamber turns the player's concept of reality against him. Most puzzles are as much, or less, about how and where you move, as they are about how and where you look; the game world frequently shifts around you based on what you see, or don't.

This leads to entire categories of puzzle that have never been done before. There are also more digestible (but still unique) block-moving puzzles, based on physics guns you get ahold of as the game proceeds. But one common trait of all the different puzzle types, is that despite being totally reliant on lateral thinking, they never seem impossible. Antichamber's overall design - like an open-world of puzzles, where you can instantly warp to any particular room (from that same starting/options room) - allows you to approach puzzles in whatever order you please, and gradually, iteratively learn its mechanics at your own pace.

The puzzles are great, the open-world map is great, and the visual design is great -- a big part of the pleasure of Antichamber is seeing the spatial paradoxes happening around you. But there is one general shortcoming of the game: it doesn't really have anything else. There's no story, and there are no characters. There is a collection of captioned signs which operate as hints and punny life-metaphors, but they're more Fortune Cookie than true insight. The soundtrack doesn't have any real music; it's more of a collection of ambient sounds which, though striking and informative of your surroundings, don't invoke any real mood or feeling.

The amount of content and technical polish is understandable - actually, more than I would expect - from a one-man show; but while the mechanical uniqueness of Antichamber is engrossing, it completely takes the place of any kind of feeling or personality.

I wrapped Antichamber up, hidden exits and all, in about seven hours. I've heard that this measurement can vary widely, between two and ten hours, based on how your thought processes intersect with the proverbial box. But the amount of content - that is, the number and variety of puzzles - seems perfectly adequate and appropriate for the game's depth, feeling neither foreshortened nor overextended. That said, $20 seems like a bit of a stretch.

Antichamber is a fun puzzle game and a commendable design achievement; a real mechanical marvel. But as an experience, it feels lacking.

Better than: Q.U.B.E.
Not as good as: Portal
For a game with this many hidden rooms and clever tricks: it's downright baffling that there are no Steam achievements.

Progress: 100%