Antichamber

RPS Wot-I-Think: http://www.rockpapershotgun.com/2013/01/31/wot-i-think-antichamber/

Antichamber is a mildly insane first-person-puzzler. It's Portal with different puzzle mechanics, no story, and rather more faith in the player's ability to overcome challenge without any hand holding. Most of the time, the hint for a puzzle comes after you've solved it--which is actually rather nice here, because otherwise I'd be left wondering if I'd solved it or just exploited a bug.

It's emphatically non-Euclidean. Walk through a door, turn around, and walk back. Even odds you aren't where you started. I have absolutely no clue how the map fits together. There is a map, though, and you stumble and grope your way through it in a fairly nonlinear fashion. Get stuck, and you can go away and come back when you have the right tools. Those tools may be items acquired in the game, or (just as often) new concepts that can be applied at any time once you figure them out.

I went in with misgivings about the difficulty, since this sounded like the sort of game that's impossible to solve without inhabiting the designer's head or a walkthrough. I didn't need to worry, though; this isn't an easy game, but it's fair and I've been progressing at a reasonable pace.

One minor hint: The RPS review mentions that it's easy to find yourself beating your head against a puzzle that you can't solve because you don't have the right tool yet. This is true. However, there is a clue as to when this is happening, and once you figure it out you'll always know when you can't progress through an area yet.

It's pretty awesome if you like puzzle games. Anyone else playing?

This game is super awesome but I play too long and no think good

Well done for linking the article but not the game.

Watched the trailer on their site and stopped before it showed me how to solve the puzzle. Looked cool enough that I think I'll be picking this up.

Game site

Buy it on Steam at 25% off

I've been having an absolute blast with this game. The puzzles are great and take time to figure out. Other than the non-Euclidean level geometry, the puzzles themselves all have a consistent internal logic.

Highly recommended.

Interesting. I'll have to keep an eye out for this clue. I hadn't noticed anything like it yet.

I was thinking of trying this, I'm glad to hear it's good.

It's interesting to play, some pretty clever stuff in there and I love how the transitions are totally invisible. I'm just not sure it's £12 of interesting, and for a game which does such a great job of transparently explaining the mechanics (better than Valve I think, you really do learn without realising) they could have done a better job with that map.

Let me say again though, it's a very clever game with unique level design.

I'm not too far into it yet, but I appreciate how parts of it hurt my head in a good way. Some of the impossible spaces are more forced than others, but they're balanced out by some non-euclidian spaces that I can feel my brain's spatial centers thrashing. I think my favorite wasn't actually a "puzzle" per se:

Some very nice use of invisible transitioning.

There's a room with a purple block embedded in the wall that moves when you look at it.

I still haven't figured out what clue you're taking about here. Please share!

Oh. That I already knew. :).

WELL SO MUCH FOR ME FEELING SMART THEN

It's also not always true. See FLY? as an example.

True. I'm not sure what's up with that, although it IS quite a bit easier with the red gun.