Antichamber Review
With gaming’s rich (albeit short) history, most new releases are variations of what’s been done before. This isn’t necessarily a bad thing. Incremental improvements are the most natural and logical direction to take and they can be extremely enjoyable. What about games that bring something new to the table?
Developed by Alexander Bruce, Antichamber is unlike anything you’ve ever played. Originally titled Hazard: The Journey of Life, Antichamber’s first public showings go back to the Tokyo Game Show in 2009. That would be a hefty development period for even a mega-budget AAA game.
At first glance, the game’s raw visual style is what immediately catches your attention. The style is intentional as it aids what is really unique about this game: its non-Euclidean nature. Every game I can ever remember playing utilizes Euclidean geometry. This means that paths and locations can be followed logically. Think of those old-school dungeon crawlers where you would pull out some graph paper to map out the dungeon. That is Euclidean geometry.
Antichamber is not like that. It is impossible to map out. You can walk up a flight of stairs, turn a corner, and find yourself at the bottom of the stairs you just walked up. You can walk down a hallway, turn 180 degrees, and have a new path in front of you. You can walk into a room, look up at the ceiling, and find yourself in a different location when you look back down.
In short, Antichamber is a massive mind-trip. At its core, it is a game designed to make you question your perceptions. It’s unique art style and non-Euclidean navigation masterfully pair up to enhance this core element. After playing for just a short time you will begin to examine things more critically. Just because something looks like a wall, doesn’t necessarily mean it’s a wall.
Interspersed throughout the game are puzzles and short texts. The puzzles are solved by using a special gun-like object which is used to manipulate blocks. As you progress through the game, you get upgraded guns which allow additional ways to manipulate the blocks.
The game also does away with traditional level formats and instead functions as a single giant map. The game is highly non-linear and you are free to chart your own path. The puzzles are interspersed in a way that you often come across puzzles which are unsolvable with your current gun. This is not made blatantly obvious and so after frustratingly failing to solve a puzzle you will eventually decide to pursue a different direction. Then, later in the game after you’ve upgraded your gun, you will realize that you can now easily solve what used to be impossible.
The short texts serve as hints of what you need to do, summaries of what you’ve just done, little life lessons, or most commonly some combination of the three.
The closest thing to Antichamber would probably be Portal, except Antichamber has no story, plot, or characters. No extrinsic rewards such as a princess to rescue or a world to save exist. There isn’t any purpose behind anything you do in the game except for just figuring it out. This wasn’t problematic until the end.
Without any external goals or objectives to work for, the game’s conclusion felt a little flat. There was this feeling of “Well, I guess it’s over,” and that was it. As gamers, we’ve been programmed to expect something at the end but Antichamber just doesn’t fit into any normal equation.
Antichamber is a great example of how innovative indie games can be. It would be best enjoyed by someone who has patience and determination. If that describes you then you should definitely try it out. It’s sheer uniqueness and ability to stretch your mind make it deserving of a play-through.
92/100