Causal Loop

I am thoroughly convinced that these positive reviews are just the developer's friends being supportive. With about 3.5 hours clocked, I'm done with ~11/15 chapters and I have 0 intention of ever finishing this. Characters: The main character is *insufferable.* Everything is a childish witticism. Think of a random generic Marvel/Star Lord quip. He says it. "Well that just happened!" "That's one way to make an entrance!" "You really think I'd slip? *slips* Woaoaaaah!" He's a petulant, annoying, childish moron. I don't blame the VA here, they're trying their best, but it seems like their stage direction was "sound as much like a bratty man-child as possible" and they said "Okay, boss!" Characters try to be helpful to him or just explain something and he responds with insults and pre-pubescent rage. It's just unbearable. Jen/Walter are less insufferable but are just walking stereotypes of "snarky but helpful robot" and "Competent science lady who shakes her head and sighs as the boys have a pissing contest but has a soft spot for our protagonist despite him being a man-child." The puzzles: What the hell happened? There are no puzzles. You walk around and find the correct button to push, have a looped version of yourself push it, and walk through the door that it opens. Oo but wait, sometimes you have to have *two* copies of yourself push *two* buttons. But wait, wait! Sometimes you have to put a key in a lock, except instead of just carrying it to the lock, you have to put the key into a recharger on the wall every 10 seconds and wait for it to recharge and then keep carrying it to the lock. Or, what about this, instead of being able to teleport the key with you, you have to chuck it over a wall, then teleport to the other side of the wall and pick it up again. Mind blowing stuff. The puzzles are designed as though this is the first puzzle game you've ever played and have the learning capacity of a carrot. The vast majority of time spent on them will just being wandering around trying to *locate* the buttons and locks you need to finish the level. The puzzle that took me longest I was briefly excited because I thought I may have to actually use my brain, but then I realized I just missed an awkwardly placed button that activated a bridge, trivializing the puzzle. Either: the puzzle designer has no idea how to design puzzles of any complexity, or they intentionally made them like, childishly easy for whatever reason. I kept playing with the hope that they would ramp up the difficulty, but I'm not exaggerating when I say that even 3.5 hours in on chapter 11/15 the difficulty is at the same level of the maybe the opening tutorial levels of Portal 1/2 or Talos Principle 1/2. I won't spoil the actual plot, and maybe it would've been interesting enough to keep me playing had the puzzle design at least been average, but it's really just piss-poor across the board here. The best thing I can say for the game is it ran well on my (strong) PC and I didn't run into any obvious bugs or crashes.

Well, I’m a bit sad to write a bad review because the idea is not bad and effort have been made for the story. I’m almost at the end of the game (just one more level) and I will probably beat it to get the end of the story but it’s really tedious, and I don’t want to play anymore, because of gameplay. The first problem is that the main mechanics is extremely underused for like the 12 first chapters (on 15) and it’s used mainly to push buttons, synchronizing and complex pattern that could be fun to find are not really there. But if it was only easy, that wouldn’t be really a problem: for example talos principle 2 is quite easy and very fun. The problem here is that solving problems become very tedious because maps are quite big and very hard to get in your head. So I spent most of my time understanding where things are placed and how to reach them and very little to think about a puzzle: when you are clear about how everything is placed, the solution doesn’t require to think to be found. So for me this game is more about finding your way in the maps rather than playing with the mechanic. And it’s becoming a big problem the more you are close to the end. Puzzle are not fun but they become tedious and boring to solve even when you have the solution. I probably liked like 2 puzzle on the entire game. On top of that, they added some super strict plateforming (like it’s first person but if you don’t jump exactly when the feet you don’t see are at the edge, you fall while you are trying to solve a puzzle….). That really is worst idea of the game. Anyway I really feel the devs can release something very good, because they have good concept ideas, maybe for the next game, but this one is a miss for me on the gameplay part.

TL;DR: This game has terrible writing, frustrating puzzle mechanics and does not respect you as a player. The game consists of 15 chapters and it feels like around chapter 10 or 11 the game undergoes a sudden shift in philosophy. The first couple of chapters are incredibly slow. Everything is spoon-fed to you, the puzzles are not hard at all, they are barely puzzles. In addition to that, the game frequently interrupts your gameplay with cutscenes and the game will often tell you things that you either already figured out yourself or it just prevents you from figuring things out on your own (The game does not respect you as a player). In the second part of the game, all of the puzzles suddenly become huge. The areas are gigantic and cluttered with puzzle-mechanics. There are symbols that help you understand which button opens what door, but these symbols often look really close to each other and when there are so many different symbols in one single puzzle, then it's just tedious. Almost all puzzles also feature teleporters that teleport you to another area of the map. These completely ruin your sense of orientation and just feel lazy. Most of the time, finding the solution to the puzzle is not the problem. The problem is that the areas are so huge and cluttered that you will miss a single object that's required for the puzzle that's preventing you from moving on. You spend more time finding all the elements than actually solving the puzzles and executing the puzzles (The game does not respect you as a player). Puzzle games usually separate the "finding the solution" and "executing the solution" part. This game fails here in quite a few puzzles. There just is no sense of direction, you just start executing before even knowing where to go. You go into a loop, you press the button, you walk through whatever that opens, hoping that along the way you'll figure out where you're even supposed to go. In later puzzles, the separation is more clear (although finding the puzzle elements is tedious because the game does not respect you as a player), but the execution will suck all the fun out of you. I read in another review that someone stopped playing after the 11th chapter and honestly I wish I had done the same. A lot of the puzzles require precise timing. If you don't get it right, you have to record the entire thing again. Sometimes, when you're recording the 3rd loop you only then figure out that the first loop is slightly misaligned so you have to re-record all 3 loops. It's no fun. This is especially true for the last 2 chapters. They are genuienly the worst I have ever seen in a puzzle game (With the exception of Obduction). At this point it is also worth pointing out that this entire game is purely derivative. The core mechanic that this entire game is built upon is essentially just the recording mechanic from the Talos Principle. It is worth noting that The Talos Principle 2 features all the puzzle mechanics that are in the first Talos Principle - excluding the recording mechanic - because almost no one liked it, since it was tedious to get the timing right and you would have to re-record quite often. Maybe that should have been taken as a hint. But even besides the core mechanic, other puzzle elements and story elements are also not really unique. You have the tractor beams that are clearly inspired by Portal 2, you have the same exact story choice as in the first Talos Principle game, and the entire story feels like an abomination of different time loop stories you've heard before (The Entropy Center, for example, but there are many more examples like this since this kind of story really is not original). The story and writing of the game is terrible, there's just no way to sugarcoat it. Maybe this is because the developer team only consists of three people and none of them do this kind of stuff professionally, but that doesn't make the story any better. The characters never shut up. The worst part is that the character that I play also never shuts up. This completely removes the player from being part of the story and turns to just being an observer which really makes you not care about it anymore fairly quickly. The characters also say disastrously unfunny and awful stuff which I would have assumed to be on some sort of writing blacklist by now. It's just whacky one-liners that maybe a three year old would find engaging. Here are four of my favorite ones: "Didn't wanna steal your thunder.", "That's why i get the big bucks." (this is after doing something incredibly simple in the first chapter), "Focus Bale, ... you got this." (Bale is the character that says this), "Okay... what the hell did I just do?" (this is also said by the player themselves). The characters also just occasionally stop the gameplay to tell you things that you already know or have already figured out (this is because the game does not respect you as a player). Just purging about 60 or 70% of the voicelines would significantly improve the overall writing and gameplay. I have two positive things to say about this game. It looks alright. It actually looks good most of the time, but occasionally there are just lighting issues, where the game thinks that you do not need lighting in certain areas of the map and you will just be standing inside a void-like area. There were also 3 puzzles (not chapters) that I liked. These were the ones that were past chapter 11, but just small confined areas where it was clearly communicated what you had to do. I also wanna point out that the game has a compass at the top of the screen. I thought I didn't know why. The game also has a level, where you are in a snowstorm and can't see very far, so your suspiciously "Wheatley from Portal 2"-shaped companion tells you what cardinal direction to go to, until you find a light, at which point you will receive the next cardinal direction to go to. I also didn't know why this level was in the game, because it's just not a fun thing to do. My personal theory is that they added the compass and eventually realized that they are not doing anything with it, so they added this level. It could also be the other way around, but I doubt that they would add a level where you just walk in cardinal directions in a snowstorm where you can't see anything for a few minutes, because that is just not a fun thing to do. Or maybe they would, because after all, they do not respect you as a player. This review should not discourage you from playing this game. You have to play bad puzzle games (that do not respect you as a player) every once in a while, since it makes you appreciate the good ones (the ones that respect you as a player) even more.

What an experience. Let me preface this by saying: I’m not a puzzle game fan. Far from it, actually. But I wanted to step outside my comfort zone a bit, and I thought, “This is sci-fi, it has aliens, and the story sounds cool… ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥, I’m in.” The Story I was pleasantly surprised by how much I grew attached to these characters. Bale and Walter have such strong buddy-cop energy that it’s impossible not to find them endearing. Speaking of Bale, I loved his development throughout the story. He starts off as this cocky, egotistical jerk who only cares about himself, but gradually grows into someone who realizes there’s far more at stake than his own survival. I genuinely empathized with him and the difficult choices and uncertainties he had to face along the way. The Gameplay I found the gameplay loop (heheh) incredibly satisfying. Searching for scattered pieces of information and slowly piecing everything together like one giant puzzle felt rewarding from start to finish. I also loved the surge of excitement whenever you reached a major milestone and that burst of energy appeared in front of you — shoutout to your family, because that moment was absolutely peak. My only real gripe is that some of the levels felt slightly too large. Not overwhelmingly so, but enough that I occasionally got lost wandering around. Graphics and Performance You can see my specs attached, and while my rig is definitely no spaceship, this game ran beautifully at 1080p Ultra settings with DLSS set to Quality. I hovered around 100 FPS consistently, with zero frame pacing issues. Huge congratulations to this team of apparently three people?! That’s genuinely insane considering how polished the technical side of the game is. The visuals were impressive too. I was genuinely surprised by how good the game looked. My only complaint would be the biome variety — around 80% of the game takes place in rocky desert environments, which feels like a missed opportunity because Tor Ulsat had so much potential for more diverse and creative locations. That said, the environment in the final chapter was fantastic. Conclusion This game ended up being a really pleasant surprise. The story was engaging, the characters were memorable, the visuals were impressive, and the gameplay was consistently fun and satisfying. I’d definitely recommend this game if you’re looking for a solid sci-fi puzzle experience with rewarding gameplay and an interesting story. Thanks for listening to my TED Talk 9/10 too much water

The time loop mechanic is genuinely clever and gets pretty mind-bending in the best way, especially once things start layering on top of each other. What I didn’t expect was how much I got pulled into the story. There’s a strong sci-fi narrative running through it, and the fully voiced characters plus the mysterious alien setting give it a lot more weight than I was expecting from a puzzle game. Smart puzzles, cool concept, old-school-game vibes, and a surprisingly engaging story. Definitely worth it. 10/10 would let Walter rage bait me again.

This game is quite unique and i find the premise very interesting. For people who like problem solving puzzles and such i totally recommend this game.

Causal Loop is a nice little puzzle game with a cool unique mechanique, the ability to create up to 3 echoes that loop and which you use to solve time gates puzzles. The game run well on highest graphic settings on 75hz 1080p, but while the game didnt need more than 20-30% of my gpu, the gpu temperature went quite high (70°C+). There were no graphic bugs or any game related bug at all beside one specific place where the ground had some artifacts/was shifting a bit. The game took me 11 hours for my first complete blind run which is totally acceptable for the 18 euro it costs on release. The only negative thing I have to say is that one of the sub mechanics of the game (the keys having different values) should have been used more often.

An awesome sci-fi puzzle game, with fair and rewarding difficulty. The main game mechanics reminds somewhat of the Recorders in The Talos Principle, except that, unlike the Recorders, it's fast-paced and fun. What also makes it outstanding is its performance on Steam Deck. In my experience, Causal Loop with the "Steam Deck" built-in graphics quality preset runs in 30 fps nearly flawlessly, without any upscaling, even with HDR turned on (I have OLED), and with default Proton. And it looks great, with cool reflections and shadows. Given that most UE5 games run like slideshows on a Deck, this is legendary job. Playing with a controller, you might want to adjust the turn sensitivity rate and the up/down sensitivity rate to your liking. I've settled on 0.7 and 0.6 respectively (the default is 1.0 for both settings) but YMMV.

A fantastically clever and gorgeous puzzle game. While it clearly takes inspiration from the Portal games (the primary puzzle mechanic comes in Blue and Orange and there are direct equivalent puzzle elements to Emancipation Grills, Light Bridges, Excursion Funnels, and Faith Plates, and the companion character is highly reminicent of a Personality Core), as well as Metroid Prime (the visuals of the planet, the alien technology, and a scanner system reminicient to that in the Prime series), it maintains strong originality by having its own unique story, interesting character dynamics, original and clever puzzle designs, and highly polished visuals. There are 3 primary criticisms I have with the game 1. Frequently, there are sections in which difficult jumps have to be made in order to solve puzzles. It is often unclear if that is intended or if I simply made a jump the developers did not expect and used that to solve puzzles 2. The timing element of several of the puzzles is very difficult, your movements have to be near perfect in order to succeed, and the Keys' countdown timers can make for frustrating puzzles 3. If you die during a puzzle by missing a jump or a key exploding in your face, any of your saved loops are reset and must be redone. On its own this is not so much of an issue, but given the first 2 points, it can occationally lead to frustration and boredom where several steps have to be redone due to one mistake EDIT: The devs added an option to disable this! I am very impressed that the developers are so open to feedback and committed to improving the game. These criticisms, however, are essentially nitpicks. This game, like all others, is not perfect, but given its existence as an indie game with a small development team, it absolutely knocks its goal out of the park. As a message to the developers, I would love if there were a level editor, similar to that of Portal 2, as I found myself imagining cool interactions or unique emergent mechanics as I played the game, and I would love to make puzzles with those mechanics. Not only that, but because the puzzles were so fun, I want more of them! Overall, this is an absolutely fantastic game and I am so grateful that I was able to play it.

I've already played the demo and the full game has been great fun so far. I'm playing on Linux using Steam Proton and the game is running perfectly fine on my RTX 4070. As for the game itself, I've been enjoying the puzzles because they do ramp up in complexity well enough to keep things interesting. Different symbols to keep track of, making sure to not run into other echoes of yourself, timed keys that need to be inserted into sockets before they blow up, and trying to fit it all into the time budget of your echoes because they only last a certain period. The game requires some dexterity because jumping and good timing is required, but it doesn't require lightning reflexes. And it doesn't punish failure - if you die, you'll get respawned immediately and can just try again. I've yet to finish the game, so no comments on the end game and story resolution, but the Bale/Walter/Jen dynamic makes me curious how it'll all play out.