Hey Hive!
If you didn't catch the last couple of posts, this is a new series where I write about games that I've played; what they're about and my experience playing them! I'll try my best to keep these posts short and sweet, hence the name; it's a reference to Games Done Quick (GDQ) - a charity speedrunning event! Since Tasteem is not up and running yet, my foodie series will be put on hiatus indefinitely, and this series will take its place on Wednesdays!
Anyway, the game I want to share today is one that I think deserves more recognition - Quantum Conundrum!
If you've never heard of this game before, Quantum Conundrum is a first-person puzzle-platformer developed by Airtight Games and published by Square Enix. It was directed by Kim Swift, who formerly worked at Valve as a lead designer on the critically acclaimed Portal.
The plot is pretty simple; you're a mute twelve year old boy who's come to stay with your brilliant but peculiar uncle, Professor Fitz Quadwrangle, who's been messing about with experiments, causing him to get trapped in another dimension and put his mansion in lockdown. Quadwrangle doesn't remember what went wrong, but is able to watch and communicate with you as you try to rescue him. So now you're tasked with going through the crazy complex mansion to get it up and running again (by turning on 4 generators). And you do that by switching between dimensions using the IDS (Inter-Dimensional Shift) glove and solving puzzles!
You know, just another average weekend for a young boy with a crazy scientist of an uncle.
Here's the trailer:
Gameplay-wise, Quantum Conundrum plays quite similarly to Portal actually. With a first person perspective and a device that enables you to traverse the area and solve puzzles. But instead of portals, now you're thinking with dimensions! More specifically, in 4 different dimensions!
The first dimension you get to manipulate is called Fluffy, where objects are ten times lighter than normal! Not only does this make previously immovable objects (i.e. huge metal safes and heavy couches) easy to pick up, but the stuff you throw will fly farther as well.
The second dimension you get is called Heavy, where objects are ten times heavier than normal! It's pretty much the opposite of Fluffy, making boxes perfect to act as weights to press buttons and dense enough to protect you against deadly lasers.
You'll gain and lose control of the dimensions depending on the specifications of each room. So the game will send you to rooms where you'd exclusively use Fluffy, or Heavy, or both. At the start, they'll pretty much guide you and show you which dimension is needed by restricting you but once you have access to both the difficulty ramps up, so it falls to brain power and some good old fashioned trial and error to discover which dimension is needed to solve the puzzle.
Once you get the first 2 generators running, you'll get access to the other dimensions. The third one you get is the Slow dimension, where time crawls to ten times slower than normal, though the player moves at normal speed. And the last one is the Reverse Gravity dimension, where gravity is reversed, though the player is unaffected by this.
The game focuses heavily on physics, with many puzzles only solvable with a deft mix of dimension swapping and perfect timing. For example, picking up an item in the Fluffy dimension, throwing it and activating the Slow dimension provides a dangerous yet necessary means of transportation (above a deadly sea of lasers that is).
Visually, Quantum Conundrum is really appealing. The game is smooth, and although the environments are not very finely detailed, they're very clean, as if lifted from a cartoon. I actually really like the design of the mansion. It's colourful and homely, mixed with laboratory knick-knacks and doodads, of course.
The writing is this game is definitely on par with Portal in terms of sarcastic humour, with your uncle giving you jibes and flavour text every now and then whenever you interact with a certain object or fail to solve a puzzle. There are some cute side characters as well, such as Desmond the drinking bird, a mechanical mouth that dispenses stuff, and a cute furry Interdimensional Kinetic Entity; or Ike!
The soundtrack is really great too (composed by Chris Ballew), with most of the songs being on the jazzy side (thanks to the bass guitar) with a very chill vibe, which I think is key when trying to solve puzzles. Although I can't say the songs match specific stages since I'm pretty sure they rotate as you progress, the music has such a unique sound, and fits the game perfectly.
I actually wrote about one of the songs from this game about 2 years ago in my OST series if you wanna check it out!
Quantum Conundrum was released on Steam in June 2012, and on PlayStation and Xbox 360 in July 2012. It received generally favorable reviews, with critics praising the game for "its physics-warping mechanics, thoughtful brainteasers, and playful atmosphere", saying it would appeal to legions of Portal fanatics.
And I wholeheartedly agree! I'm a huge fan of the Portal series and when I played this game in 2016 (a little late, I know), I absolutely loved it! The puzzles got kinda challenging, but the learning curve is pretty gentle, with each area easing you into using the new dimension.
I can see why some people might get frustrated with the timing-based puzzles, but Portal had them too, and being a seasoned platforming gamer, I didn't mind them. Most of the puzzles involved brain work though, and they're all really well-thought out and designed, which makes them fun to solve! I'd recommend going through the game solo and not consulting any guides, because the solution is often just under your nose.
Nice Portal reference there.
My favourite thing about this game (other than the dialogue) is definitely the details in the background. There are various goofy paintings you can find throughout the mansion that look great on their own, but they change in each of the 4 different dimensions as well, often with hilarious results. Like this one:
It's so cool just finding little secrets that they programmed into the game. If you're a fan of puzzle games, definitely check out Quantum Conundrum!
Thanks so much for reading!
To find out more about me, check out my intro post here!
Check out my previous post in this series!
