Antichamber (PC)

Alright, now that Replay Week is finally out of the way I can at last reveal my true master-plan for Super Adventures: Year Four. This year the site has a dumb gimmick you see: I'm going to play games in roughly alphabetical order; 3-4 of them per letter, one letter every fortnight, and this is going to carry on for the next 51 weeks (or until I get bored of the idea).

This tiny change should help me clear out my current backlog as there'll be an average of 96% less games around to distract me, while also giving readers a clue of what to expect for once. If you're hoping I'll play a game starting with K, they'll be showing up in July. If you're dying to see me play, I dunno... Zeno Clash, then that could happen next January!

I realise that chronological order would make more sense for so many reasons, as it'd put the games in context and let me examine how they've evolved over time. But knowing me I'd likely still be talking about the Master System and the NES five months in and this site ain't Chrontendo so I'd doubt I'd get away with it. Maybe next year though!

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I'm starting this off with another game from my long list of requests: first person indie puzzle game Antichamber.

I've heard that this is a game about discovering the rules and gameplay for yourself, so that even showing you how it plays would be a spoiler. But I'm going to go and do it anyway, so if you have an interest in playing through the game yourself and and you haven't already, you might not want to read any of this. Not that I'm likely to be able to get very far into it.

I'm not going to show you the title screen though, because the game doesn't have one.

(Clicking these screenshots will unfold them to their original size.)

In fact it doesn't even have a main menu or an options screen. I've just been dumped right into the first level, set in a Star Trek holodeck as reimagined by Frank Millar.

My primary monitor is getting a bit old now, but Antichamber doesn't give a fuck about my custom-built retrogaming set-up, instead stretching its widescreen resolution to fill my whole non-widescreen screen. Fortunately the screenshots are coming out fine though.

Well there's the level exit to my left. Good place for it really, it's convenient.

Oh here's the options screen, over on the right wall! No anti-aliasing, no pause button, no way to redefine the keys... oh but there is a time limit. Good good.

It's using a standard WASD set-up, so I expect that 90% of gamers are going to be happy with it as it is. I'm left handed and stubborn though, so it's not something I'm used to. It's gonna be a bit awkward, but if I could get used to Mr Pibb's arcane key layout last month I'm sure I can get over it.

So this is the map then? Damn, I'm spoiled for choice. I guess I'll click... there.

Alright, I've been teleported into a white room with a large gap and floating text that looks like it's escaped from a ZX Spectrum game.

"JUMP!!" you say? Well, I wouldn't have thought I could jump that far, but if the game tells me I can then who am I to doubt its integrity?

I couldn't jump that far. But hey, it all worked out because I've found the ending! It's just on the other side of this impenetrable barrier. Man, this is the second unreachable exit I've found in the first minute. I guess I'll have to make a mental note of where this is and come back to it later.

I turned around and walked down some steps and I now I'm looking at a slightly smaller chasm blocking my way, below the one I fell down. It's possible I might be able to jump this one, but I wouldn't bet on it.

Well I suppose that I can either try to leap it anyway, or I can go back the other way and try to break through the forcefield with my head; I'm not overwhelmed with obvious alternatives here.

Turns out that I couldn't jump that far either. It seems I'm still making some progress though as I've found a new corridor leading off into the darkness.

Right, now I'm at two staircases; one goes up and one goes down. Man, the game developer must have had the smuggest grin on his face when he came up with this one. But I'll play along and see where where red staircase takes me.


SEVERAL STAIRS LATER.

Two more staircases again huh? This looks just like the the room I was in on the last floor... and the floor before that. Though there is an extra picture on the wall this time.

I clicked the image to the left to reveal the message:

"The choice doesn't matter if the outcome is the same."

The lesson here being 'quit walking up and down the staircases dumbass, it should be blatantly obvious that way is a dead end'. So I turned around to discover that the corridor I'd just walked here through had been silently swapped with a brand new one leading to freedom!

Oh, well so much for freedom then. A door behind me closed up to trap me in this tiny cell, so all I can do now is hit Esc like it says to teleport back to the antechamber I started off in.

Well I just wasted 4 minutes of my precious time running in circles, but I'll hold off on hitting the restart button for now and go back to the start of the dungeon to see if anything new's opened up.

Uh, didn't this say 'JUMP!!' earlier?

Sure did. By the way, if you take out the outlines and invert the image, the lighting here starts to make a whole lot more sense. This maze is lit up with anti-light.

Anyway I did exactly what it said (again) and it turns out that walking was the correct solution to the problem, as a floor helpfully materialised below my feet.

And this path leads to another dead end! At least until I find a jetpack or grow wings.

Actually wait, it's not a dead end, as I can throw myself down the pit and see where that takes me.

A corridor with balls at the end. They seem to react to how quickly I move but are harmless either way, so I'll ignore them for now. Alright let's see where this hallway leads.

Uh, this has just put me right back in the pit under the 'WALK?' text. I guess I failed the ball puzzle then?

No, wait, I know something I didn't know last time was here! This time I'll try walking across this hole instead of jumping and see if that gets me across.

Walking across worked, so now I'm in the room at the end of the hallway, full of these cubes; each side of each one showing a different set of objects within. All except this one, which I can escape through. I guess that's all that puzzle was about then: finding the cube with the exit.
 

Damn, now I'm in a proper labyrinth. Still, I suffered through one of Max Payne's dream sequences this week, so this is going to be a cakewalk by comparison.

Oh, that's the corridor leading back out into the cube room. I guess I must have gotten turned around. Alright I'll try this again from the start then.


MUCH LATER.

Okay, this maze is fucking ridiculous! It seems that no matter how far I go, I'm never more than two turns away from ending up back in that bloody entrance corridor again. I'm sure there's a trick to it, probably involving remembering what turn I made last time and not making the same mistake, but I'm just going to brute force it with sheer persistence 'cause I'm dumb.


EVENTUALLY.

Holy shit, I'm back outside the cube room again, just past that red corridor with the pit I had to walk over! The game's absolutely determined to beat my willpower out of me.

Well the new arrow on the floor says go right, so I guess I'm going right this time. I could've sworn I looked in this corridor already, but I haven't got a clue what was down there. Lots of white walls I imagine.


A FEW HALLWAYS LATER.

Oh you have got to be shitting me, I'm back at the same pitch black corridor with the green lines again? This is right at the start of the bloody game, at the bottom of the hole underneath the 'WALK?' text; the only place this takes me to is those two endless staircases again.

Hang on is that arrow pointing towards... oh shit there's another hallway there hidden in plain sight! Was that there the first time as well or did they pull that trick again where they connect the corridors up differently?

There, this is what that earlier screenshot looks like brightened up. The right path was there from the start and I had no idea. Sneaky little game.

Okay this thing is basically awesome. The window is a portal looking into another room elsewhere, but if I stand close enough to it so that I can't see the room I'm in any more, then when I look away I'm now standing inside the room I was looking into. The effect is instantaneous and absolutely seamless. Such a bloody clever trick.

Sorry for totally spoiling that for you by the way. Stripping away all mystery and wonder and replacing it with cold miserable truth is part of the service I provide.


SOON.

Oh by the way, the room it was looking into had a CUBE GUN in it. So I'm armed now, armed with the power to store and place small blue cubes.

Fortunately blue cubes have a thousand and one uses, such as being jammed in door locks to open doors. Plus I used another one earlier as a step! Though I'm kind of stuck now, as there's three doors here and the lock only opens two of them, while closing the third.

These signs I've been finding along the way usually explain the moral I'm supposed to have learned by solving the last puzzle, but this one's actually got some good advice for my current predicament for once. The door thing I mean, I haven't forgotten my pants again.

There, I went back and picked up my step block to use it as a door stop. With the third door stuck open I can use my other cube in the lock to open the rest of the doors as well. Now I'm really getting somewhere with this. I've even made sure to grab the door stop block again on the way out in case I need it later. See, I'm learning!

Well it's definitely a good thing I brought that block with me! Shame I didn't find two more of them along the way though as without them this block is useless. That's just typical for this game; all my successes lead to failures and dead ends.


LATER

I guess I'm going to file this room under 'dead end' for now. Alright I'm going to teleport back to my home base and see if I can figure out where I can use my blocks. Not these blocks though: the ones spinning around in my gun right now. No these blocks are going to disappear when I return to the antechamber. But I'm sure I'll find replacement blocks along the way when I get back.

The game kinda does that Metroid thing, where I pick up knowledge and abilities as I go, which I can then go back and use in the places I got stuck earlier. But unlike Metroid, this takes place in a shifting three-dimensional maze, which makes it hard for me to remember where I've been and how it all connects even when I'm looking at a map which literally shows me a line indicating where I've been and how it all connects.

It is cool that I can instantly teleport back to areas I've visited, though you may have noticed that getting back to places I've already been comes pretty easy (and regularly) to me.

The game also keeps track of all the pictures and truisms I've found on the walls so far. After mentally defragging this with my mind, I'm going to estimate I must be around... say a third of the way through the game. I've come a long way in 27 minutes; maybe I have a chance of finishing this within the time limit after all.


SOON.

There's no bloody way I'll ever finish this within the time limit. Can't believe I got trapped in the same ESC room twice though.

I've been retracing my steps around the game so far, trying to systematically examine every room for blocks or puzzles that can be solved by blocks, but I really can't remember what connects to what any more and drawing my own map seems like it'd be pointless.


EVENTUALLY.

HAHA, I AM ON TO YOU NOW, YOU BASTARD GAME! I can take the blocks out of the 'FLY??' message and build a bridge across the chasm! It's okay, they grow back.

I couldn't take blocks out of that 'WALK?' sign though. Consistent rules, why that would be ridiculous! Or maybe they're just the wrong colour. who even knows?

Well I guess I shouldn't be surprised and yet I kinda am. Those bubbles mark a gun disabling field; I can shoot blocks into it just fine, but I can't hold any inside of the gun. Over on the other side of the field, behind those two windows, is a door with a block activated switch. So basically this is yet another dead end, at least until I figure out how to make blocks bounce around corners.

I really did try though. I tried all kinds of dumb things to get just one block through the field to the door lock. I even started building a tunnel of blocks big enough for me to walk through, but it was soon pretty clear to me why that wouldn't work.

Man this game is frustrating.


AN HOUR OR SO LATER.

Well I've finally figured out why I couldn't get in there: it's because I hadn't found the right tool yet! This new upgraded green block gun has the ability to basically paint with blocks, letting me draw lines of them. It also means I can have a go at solving these wall puzzles I've been stumbling across.

Though to be honest, I'm finding them to be more of a test of endurance than a test of brain power. It's pretty obvious to me what I have to do here now after completing a few of these already, but I still have to go through all the steps to get it done.


MUCH LATER.

The 'WTF!!' room again? This corridor leads back to the 'WTF!!' room? But that was... I just... I managed to solve a... oh fuck it I give up.


CONCLUSION

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I feel like I should be comparing this to the Portal games, as the 'mind-bending first person puzzle game' genre isn't overly crowded right now, though aside from the upgradable hand-held puzzle solving gun and the twisting of space, the games really aren't that similar.

Portal is as much about the story and the characters as it is about the puzzles, as you face off against an increasingly sinister passive-aggressive super computer who frequently has something to say about your performance. The closest thing to another character in Antichamber on the other hand is the absent designer of the maze, or whoever has been leaving those life lessons as messages on the walls. There's no witty narrator, there's no plot (so far), there's no backstory or explanation, there's just you and a maze.

Both games give you hints about what to do; but while Portal subtly manipulates you into working out the solution yourself through dialogue and well tuned level design, Antichamber goes a step further and saves its clues until after you've completed the puzzle. It's innovative, I'll give them that.

Puzzle-wise, Portal gives you a single level to figure out at a time and when you're done with it you move on; you can cross it off your mental list unless you're planning to replay it to beat your last time/portal count. Antichamber on the other hand only has the one giant level and the trouble with that for me is that it requires you to keep an increasingly complicated sprawling impossible maze in your head; at this point I'm struggling to even remember what puzzles I've solved already. Even with the map I found I had to keep returning to areas I'd already been, trying to figure out if I'd explored all of the branching paths at each junction, and man that gets really old.

Still, Antichamber's as clever as advertised for sure and it's very impressive work, but I didn't get the entertainment out of it that others have. So it doesn't get a star.

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If you feel inspired to say something about the article, Antichamber, my grand scheme for the next 12 months of the site, or anything else, then go right ahead and leave a comment underneath. Hit me with your feedback.