- Basic infos
In Antichamber, the player controls the unnamed protagonist from a first-person perspective as they wander through non-Euclidean levels.
Regarding typical notions of Euclidean space, Bruce has stated that "breaking down all those expectations and then remaking them is essentially the core mechanic of the game".
The player starts in a room that contains four walls. One is a diegitic menu to set the various game options as well as a countdown timer starting at ninety minutes. A second wall provides a map of the game's space that will fill in as the player visits specific rooms, highlighting passages the player has yet to explore, and allows the player, upon return to this room, to jump to any room they've visited before. A third wall shows a series of cartoonish iconographs and obfuscated hint text that are added as the player finds these on walls of the puzzle space. The fourth wall is a window, showing the ultimate goal, the exit from the space, which the player must figure out how to get to.
Puzzle elements in various chambers involve maneuvering themselves around the non-Euclidean spaces, where level elements can change after passing certain points, or even based on which direction the player is facing when traversing the level. Laser beams are used as mechanisms to control various doors; these may either require the beams to be blocked or unblocked, and many doors require multiple beams to be in their proper state to open. Initially, the player can trigger these themselves. Later, the player gains access to a series of colored "guns", each which helps the player access more of the space. Initially, the gun can pick up any number of small cubes, storing them, and then place them on surfaces; these can be used to block the aforementioned laser beams, or used as platforms for the player to get over obstacles.
Other guns can be used to "grow" new blocks by placing blocks out in specific patterns, to direct a connected series of blocks towards an objective point, and to mass create and fill an area with blocks; later guns retain the abilities of the earlier ones. Certain areas in the space are dead zones that remove any blocks stored in the gun or preventblocks from moving through them. Prior to most puzzles are signs with the forementioned iconographs which can be activated to give a hint on the upcoming puzzle. At any point, the player can jump back to the firstroom, and use the map to navigate to other areas; this resets any progress made on specific puzzles though the player retains the guns they have obtained.
- Gameplay footage - I wont show a gameplay footage as it'll spoil how to solve some puzzles and make the game less interesting, but here's the trailer :
- Where to buy it - store.steampowered.com/app/219890
- My Thoughts about this game
You can feel like you're progressing when you're just running around in circles, and you can make progress when you feel like you're just running around in circles.
And during the whole game, i got this oppressing feeling when exploring, like if someone watched me, or like if i wasnt supposed to be here.
This game is really something to try out, it's more an experience than a "game"
(You don't need to be good at puzzle games for this one, i'd even say that if you're good at puzzle games, u'll have even more troubles solving some parts of this game)