Quantum Conundrum

[CeeKay]

from one of the creators of Portal comes a new first person puzzle platform.   this time around we'll be shifting dimensions to solve the puzzles as we play a kid.  the preview video looks pretty cool, can't wait to get my hands on it next year.

[EngineNo9]

from the creator of Portal ...

"One of the creators of Portal".  One of.

Still, this looks like it could be interesting.

[CeeKay]

from the creator of Portal ...

"One of the creators of Portal".  One of.

Still, this looks like it could be interesting.

oh, they make it sound like she did the whole thing herself with the opening line:

Portal creator Kim Swift has us moving through multiple (and fluffy!) dimensions in her latest puzzle platformer.

[CeeKay]

well, this is out next week.  beyond Last Story I wasn't planning on buying any new releases this summer, but I may make an exception for this one.

[EddieA]

Steam has it available for preorder - $13.49 for the game or $17.99 for the game, soundtrack, and first two DLCs.  I'm tempted to preorder.  I haven't seen any reviews, but I can't see this game not being good.

[Crawley]

I ended up pre-ordering it with the DLC. It looks like more Portal puzzles which is fine by me.

[EngineNo9]

What I saw at E3 looked pretty cool, and I ended up preordering with the DLC as well. 

[CeeKay]

played a bit and it definitely has potential.  only had one puzzle stump me but it was due to me not paying attention to the room layout; kinda like with Portal sometimes you get so caught up thinking it is a complicated answer that the simple solution slaps you across the face once you realize it

[EngineNo9]

This Giant Bomb Quicklook has me a little worried about some of the fast action platforming in the game (towards the end of the video).  I've also seen that mentioned as the low point in some reviews, so hopefully that kind of stuff isn't too prevalent. 

[CeeKay]

This Giant Bomb Quicklook has me a little worried about some of the fast action platforming in the game (towards the end of the video).  I've also seen that mentioned as the low point in some reviews, so hopefully that kind of stuff isn't too prevalent. 

I just went through the conveyor belt/laser jumping platforming that caused the guy to quit at the end and it was kind of annoying.  I cleared the first generator room and got to the next section where you encounter the dimension where time slows down, and it has some jumping puzzles so far.

one nitpick so far is that the pictures on the wall tend to be repeated too much.  it is fun to see what they look like in each dimension though.

[CeeKay]

played a bit more, and I have to agree that there are some maddeningly 'twitch' based puzzles that involve switching to one dimension to another with little to no room for error.  one example:

while in the fluffy dimension pick up one safe and throw it towards some laser beams.  after throwing it immediately pick up another safe, throw it and switch to the heavy dimension before the first one hits the beams but not so soon that it doesn't build up enough momentum to bounce through the laser beams. 

during that puzzle you have batteries to access the slow motion, heavy and fluffy dimensions but for some reason the generator has two of the slots closed off so you don't have access to all of them.  it is the only time I've seen a situation like that, so right now it feels kind of arbitrary that they'd limit you like that.  of course maybe it's just Ike acting up.

[Lordnine]

The time manipulation sections of the game are awesome. The puzzles in that section involve quite literally playing catch with yourself. I’ve only encountered one real “twich” section in the game so far and I managed to complete it on my first try. There are multiple jumping sections but they usually amount to hoping from one floating object to the next in slow motion.

I’ve managed to collect all the collectibles so far, some of those are quite devious to reach. The game says I’m about 30% done and have played about 3 hours according to Steam. 9 hours for a game of this type is really quite reasonable in my opinion and makes it about the same length as Portal 2.

Also, Ike has a pony!

[CeeKay]

played some more, and still mostly enjoying it.  in the game stats page it says I'm at 43% with 3 hours of play.  I haven't been worrying about the collectibles too much-  if it's not readily clear on how to get them I don't bother but so far all but 3 or 4 were either out of the way or weren't noticed until I was done with the puzzle.

some of the things listed when you die are pretty hilarious.  I imagine eventually someone will compile a huge list of them for easy reference.

[edit]  I also found it so much easier to map the slow motion dimension to one of the thumb mouse buttons.  I found that when in a hurry I would sometimes end up accidentally hitting E or 3 when I wanted 3 or E, and vice versa, so moving them apart stopped any such accidents.  I'm probably also going to remap reverse gravity to the middle mouse button so I don't any incidents with 1 and Q (or thumb button 1 and thumb button 2 ).

[Lordnine]

Finished tonight. Missing two robots and one blueprint. Total play time is just under 8 hours. Overall I’m satisfied. It's not as polished as Portal but what game is?

I didn’t really care for the puzzles that used the gravity dimension extensively but the rest of the game was a blast. I don’t really get the twitch complaints in some of the reviews; there were only maybe a half dozen puzzles in the game that required fast reflexes to complete beyond simply jumping from one platform to the next. What could be throwing people is that there are multiple solutions to each puzzle and it’s possible to come up with a suboptimal solution that requires a lot more input. I like Penny Arcades take on it.



Pros
Most of the puzzles are a lot of fun
Lots of “wow” moments when you figure out a hard puzzle
Attractive art style
Only $15

Cons
Writing could be a lot better
Environment is a bit barren and should have been more developed
A couple frustrating timing based puzzles
Ending is an extreme cliffhanger (which explains the season pass)

[CeeKay]

Finished tonight. Missing two robots and one blueprint.

was the blueprint the fluffy dimension one?  I don't recall seeing it at all during the blue sector.

[Lordnine]

Nope.  Missing one from the Red Room.  One robot from there as well. 

[CeeKay]

I have to agree that some of the gravity dimension puzzles are tedious, and I happily used the environment to cheese one of those puzzles.  I floated up and got stuck on some pipes, and when I fell down I just barely landed on the ending platform so I didn't have to direct the safes while I was standing on them.

I just got to 'Couch Surfing' (spoiler video), and honestly I have no desire to go forward.  The red section has successfully drained all the fun juice from the game.

[Lordnine]

I actually didn’t have much trouble with the Couch Surfing section, it was just a matter of taking it slow and tapping between fluffy and gravity.  The lasers should all miss you as long as you don’t mess with the original trajectory of the object you’re riding on too much.

There is another section where you have to use the momentum of moving robots to grav lift the boxes from one robot the next and then jump on the box as it passes by that made me furious.  To be fair though that was the last annoying puzzle in my opinion.  After that they give you back the fluffy dimension which makes it so you don’t even need to use gravity anymore unless you want to.

At this point I'm really interested in the DLC.  The game says that their are 7 dimensions, 5 are in the game currently and there are two DLC packs planned.  I'm betting that each DLC pack will be one of the missing dimensions.