Antichamber released to almost overwhelming praise in 2013, and to some degree it was warranted. It was a stylish puzzle game with some interesting mechanics, an unpredictable explorable world (if you could call it that), and a neat hook. The game capitalized on non-euclidean space, a concept that had gotten some buzz only a few years before when it was rumored to be the "F-Stop" feature deleted from Portal 2. Antichamber had been in development for longer than that, however, and so its release was just fortunate timing. Non-euclidean space essentially means that space does not have to obey proper rules of physics. You can fall a mile, but climb your way back up with a 2 foot ladder, for instance. You could walk down a hall, realize you went the wrong way, only to turn around and realize that an entirely new hallway has appeared behind you. It's pretty well the definition of trippy shit, and Antichamber rode that reputation in the year or so following release.
Antichamber's real problem is that it is only occasionally a good puzzle game. The early third of the game is essentially built around its non-euclidean gimmick. A few of these trials are neat gimmicks, such as the puzzle with the two staircases that is (nearly) impossible not to solve, but the rest are usually thin tricks rather than puzzles. A bridge can disappear below you, causing you to plummet down a pit and find a cartoon picture, your indicator throughout the game that you've solved a puzzle. Except there was no puzzle solved, you simply fell for their trap. This happens multiple times, and usually the trick to it is that you have to fail once in order to succeed, or to gain progress while not reaching the point you wanted to, now having to find a new way around to the point you intended. Most of these are totally harmless, and I'd say none of them are actually anything negative in their own right, but they comprise of nearly all of the non-euclidean puzzles in the game. The rest of the game, and where the game actually turns itself into a rather good puzzler, is with the guns.
The gun sections have a big problem, but before that problem rears its head, they start out rather good. The guns each give you a new way of manipulating colored squares that you'll find. These squares are usually used to solve puzzles, and differently colored squares can have different features (although this is mostly only true to non-blue squares, as all non-blue squares inherit the previous square color's mechanic). Solving the different functions of these squares puzzles was the most rewarding the game got, and I thoroughly enjoyed trying to find and then utilize the new mechanics as the problems were proposed. Often, there could be a few solutions, depending on what I knew. At times, however, solutions could be paramount to basically cheating the game and cheating myself, making me feel not like I solved anything, but that I had somehow gotten around the game's puzzle and devalued the reward at the same time. An early cheat you can do is build bridges and towers in order to reach things that you, ideally, would have to solve a puzzle to get to. Later, these functions are actually used once the proper guns make them far more usable (particularly in "Climbing the Tower"), but they can sometimes be accomplished earlier. The greatest issue, however, is in how the red gun, the final mechanic you unlock, can completely break many of the earlier puzzles. It has an ability I won't spoil here that makes a lot of the issues of earlier levels completely pointless. Likewise, the green gun, the second gun you find, can break puzzles around blue squares. It is disappointing that the mechanics aren't better tightly controlled, or that perhaps certain guns are only available in certain areas so that puzzles don't become ruined if you progress too far, but as it is you could find yourself accidentally solving a puzzle with the red gun before you've even understood what it was asking of you.
The thing about Antichamber that left me the most conflicted was with its cartoon panels that signify you've completed a puzzle. When the cartoon panels are clicked, they display a platitude, something like "Sometimes the only way to move forward is to go back". At first these really annoyed me, as I thought it was a cheap way to try and squeeze some depth out the game that it hadn't really earned, but after awhile I came to actually like them. For one, they appear only after a puzzle is complete, so rather than being riddles to help you solve a puzzle (or, worse, an outright spoiler), they're more or less a funny reflection on what you tried in order to solve your problem, worded in a way that could apply to something in the real world. It's admirable, but it does feel a little cheap overall, like there could have been something tying these panels together into something like a thesis. As is, the thesis of the game is more than likely just calmly think about your problems, and attempt multiple approaches.
Antichamber's praise is a bit overblown, considering its Overwhelmingly Positive status on Steam, but that isn't to say it is a bad game. It's an admirable game, one that certainly sticks out in the mind after playing it, even if it doesn't quite linger the way better puzzles do. I enjoyed learning the mechanics in the game, but never felt like they were ever all that clever. Antichamber is worth recommending, but more as a solid puzzler than anything overly inspiring.
7.0
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