Quantum Conundrum

[Thyroid]

All hail Kim Swift (and co).

This could've worked in Portal, I think.

[Ben X]

Man, that mechanic is kind of similar to ideas we were playing with for the Dan and Ben episodes...

[toblix]

GOD DAMN YOU

Looks like a fun game, though I'm not sure how the mechanics would've fit with Portal. Seems like a wholly different thing. Also, it seems they're going for the "hey, we have a puzzle game and put a story on it" approach, rather than Valve's more elegant way of going about it, which is fine.

The best thing about the preview video is when she, instead of saying "goes ahead" she says "go aheads". I'm quite confident I would totally do that myself if I were doing a presentation, and I would feel so ashamed for many weeks.

[mikemariano]

Hey, is this game out? I've read three Kim Swift interviews in the last week but none of them mention a release date.

[Gwardinen]

Hey, is this game out? I've read three Kim Swift interviews in the last week but none of them mention a release date.

Steam says it will unlock in three hours in my region (UK). No idea about other platforms.

[Murdoc]

Glad to see she's broken from the creative shackles of Valve and really struck out to do something uniquely different...

I do like the art though.

[vimes]

Glad to see she's broken from the creative shackles of Valve and really struck out to do something uniquely different..

What? She made the game she wanted to make, what's wrong with that ?

[Murdoc]

Didn't say there was anything wrong with it, though I was being somewhat sarcastic for whatever reason, maybe to make a joke? Who knows, I'm grouchy

Am interested in trying it

[HPopper]

This game made me physically ill after a minute or two. I'm going to have to tweak the ini files to turn off all the motion blur garbage. Every time you move or turn, the whole world gets blurry... and this is on purpose?! And why would you not put more video options in your UI instead of having to dig into the system files? So weird.

[Frenetic Pony]

I've been playing it and... I don't know. I'm not far in at ALL, so obviously my views are extremely limited. But so far it's just been totally uninteresting. I played Portal straight through the minute it unlocked, but this. Half an hour in and I've yet to encounter anything that I'd even CONSIDER a puzzle. It's basically been half an hour of moving from one room to the next, without any variation in the rooms, annoying writing, and "puzzles" that I've not had to take even a second to "solve" mentally, but a minute or more to just go through the motions each time.

[vimes]

Having played the first wing of the game in 95 minutes, I find that my main issue with Quantum Conundrum is that it doesn't really have a voice of its own. The art, the sound, the writing and overall game structure are not very inspired, not well executed and sadly, they're not hinged together in a way that transcends their relative mediocrity.

In terms of gameplay though, I find it pretty solid: after a point, the puzzles are a bit more stimulating and the flow is rather pleasant. I'd have to agree with Frenetic Pony about the slow progression, though: the 20 first minutes are dragging along at an incredibly slow pace.

But overall, the narrative structure is extremely close to Portal, the sound design appears to me like Explosion Man sound design with an LBP narrator, the level art is very bland... since the 'dressing' of the game isn't striking or intriguing, the game comes out as full of unecessary fluff, and so fails to get an edge over the barebone flash-style physics-based puzzle games. Which probably have bolder level design.

I'll play another session next week, but the game doesn't seem to promise anything more than what it has offered me this far. Just more of it.

[SiN]

I think people are generally being a bit too harsh on the game, mainly because of the inevitable Portal comparisons. The concept and execution aren't as elegant or rich as Portal, but it's up there.

QC makes it especially easy to appreciate how incredible Valve's "polish indefinitely" method of development is. As it stands, there's a lack of polish everywhere from the narration, to the art work, to the level design. Specifically on level design, there are some great puzzle ideas, but they get repeated too many times over. And yeah, it does start off pretty slow, but when it picks up it's pretty enjoyable.

Have to (partially) disagree on the artwork. Sure, it's a bit uninspired, but I find it charming. The art on the walls and the book names especially add some personality. Similar to the level design, there are some good ideas that get repeated too often. Given more time, I'm sure the team could have done more with it.

Which is basically how I feel about the game on the whole. It's a good game with lots of potential, but a lack of polish (and development time, I bet) means it doesn't quite reach those great heights.

But it's worth playing, especially for $15. Just don't go in expecting a Valve game.

[Forbin]

The narration and setting is weird. I really don't understand their decision to make you a child, or the tone as if this game is for kids. Because the puzzle solving would absolutely be out of their domain. Especially since it requires a ton of co-ordination and timing.

I really enjoy first person puzzle solving, so I'm glad they're making more of it. But QC will make you appreciate why Portal is more than just a sum of it's parts, and how Valve did more than just pick up a student team and publish their game.

[SiN]

The narration and setting is weird. I really don't understand their decision to make you a child, or the tone as if this game is for kids. Because the puzzle solving would absolutely be out of their domain. Especially since it requires a ton of co-ordination and timing.

Kim Swift said the game isn't designed for kids per se, but for parents to play with their kids. Which is totally cool in my books.

I don't think they pull it off perfectly, but honestly, I'd rather this than cheap-o Portal lab-rat imitation and/or MODERN WAR setting.

(although spatial puzzler + MODERN WAR setting would be kinda hilarious)

I really enjoy first person puzzle solving, so I'm glad they're making more of it. But QC will make you appreciate why Portal is more than just a sum of it's parts, and how Valve did more than just pick up a student team and publish their game.

Yup, this a million times.

[vimes]

So, having finished the game yesterday; I'm pretty much standing by what I said earlier; except for a few things:

• once the 3rd and then 4th dimension are introduced, completing the puzzles without breaking the flow becomes reaaaallly gratifying. I just LOVE
  throwing things, slowing them down, riding them, invert gravity to go toward another flying object, slow down, transfer, pick up a bunch crates in slow mo before they cross a bream
  . I didn't get that kind of adrenaline-as-reward rush in a long time.
  
• contrary to the Portal series - at least from my experience - some of the puzzles have more than one solution. Some are explicitely designed that way, but in 2 or 3 instances, it really seemed that I found emergent ways of solving situations. In hindsight, they were probably sub-optimal, but it's still awesome that they worked out.
  
• a handful of platforming sections are overly frustrating because of the slightly unpredictable mid-air control and inertia (I landed then slipped on objects I thought I would stick to) and the lack of reactivity of the jump
  
• A very infuriating detail: you can't turn off the professor advices, which are sometimes coming right when you enter a new room, robbing you from finding the solution by yourself. And the fact that his comments are repeated everytime you reload from your last checkpoint after a dying, drew me close to insanity.
  
• The last puzzle is a total letdown.
  

But if you can bear through Quantum Conundrum's mediocre universe and its first boring hour, you'll get puzzles on par or better than the best segments of Portal 2 coop. So

[Forbin]

Portal definetly had alternate solutions. Completing challenge maps based on fewest portals was a great way to expose those.

I'm convinced that my problem with the jump feel is tied to the pov being rediculously low.

[SiN]

a handful of platforming sections are overly frustrating because of the slightly unpredictable mid-air control and inertia (I landed then slipped on objects I thought I would stick to) and the lack of reactivity of the jump

Yeah, this is my biggest issue so far. Basically, Unreal engine wasn't really designed to do this stuff, and it definitely shows.

Still working through the game... I've found that after getting the third dimensions, the puzzles get a lot more interesting. A few had me stumped for a while!

[SiN]

Also: I have no idea how this is going to be playable on an Xbox controller! I had a hard enough time with Portal (1), and this seems to require far more precise movements.

[transmetalv2]

Anyone else taken a crack at the DLC? I only got in far enough to grab a desmond, and immediately ran into a moving-lasers-and-cube situation that required timing I didn't have the patience for.

[hyretic]

I've completed the main game and the DLC now. I think I liked it, but it definitely had issues. It's very hard to have that nuanced movement, which a lot of games don't have, but a game like this requires the movement to be spot on for the jumping puzzles. The game is very hard to play with a 360 controller, but the dimensional shift buttons seem like they were designed for those shoulder buttons. I found it quite difficult with the default keyboard bindings of Q, E, 1 and 3. Some of the puzzles seemed a lot more unforgiving than the Portal ones too. It's not enough to solve the puzzle, you then have to repeat it until you have the rhythm down.

All that said, the dimension mechanics are a lot of fun to play around with. The puzzles in the game maybe didn't quite take advantage of them all the time, but there's a lot of potential there. I also really loved how the game looked and sounded. The endless similar hallways and repeated chatter from the professor didn't bother me much at all.

I think if you're a fan of the Portal games and you want to play something similar, you should pick this up. Just don't expect it to be as polished as Portal.

Anyone else taken a crack at the DLC? I only got in far enough to grab a desmond, and immediately ran into a moving-lasers-and-cube situation that required timing I didn't have the patience for.

If you're referring to the part I'm thinking of, you do need quite a bit of patience for it. It's one of those puzzles that's simple to solve, but frustrating to master.

[mikemariano]

I beat this game tonight. I liked it.

Vimes is right that throwing safes around and riding them in constantly-swapped gravity is a lot of fun. Late in the game I saw a distant platform across from the manor's final generator. I thought, "hey, I can ride a safe over to the other side!" So I did, and once I arrived I realized that this distant platform was actually the beginning of the level. I created a shortcut to where I had already been.

The "Couch Surfing" was the most frustrating segment, especially because brushing the ceiling for any reason is a death sentence.

I lost a table in a set of beams, but I miraculously fell in between the laser beams and survived, stranded in the middle of what was intended to be a long table surf. Instead of restarting, I decided to navigate a table through anti- and regular gravity from the beginning, bringing it close to me, and jumping aboard. I died anyway, but I was impressed that the game gave me a chance to come back from one of my near fatal mistakes.

Fun with physics!