Constant C

When I look at this game in my library I have to wonder why I even bought it. I bought this game over 3 years ago and I cannot for the life of me recollect why I had the feeling this game was good or what attracted me to it. The developer is completely unknown, the screenshots look fine, the trailer is a tad bombastic and shows off the main mechanic of the game fairly well but it's still a very standard puzzle game. But boy am I happy that I did buy this game because this is easily [b]one of the most polished puzzle games I've ever played.[/b] Constant C is a puzzle game but with 2 extremely compelling and well-rounded mechanics: gravity switching and time dilation. Gravity switching is a fairly obvious one but the time switching mechanic is easily one of the most impressive puzzle mechanics I've seen. There world has frozen in time and only a small radius around the character has time flowing at normal speed. This means any object within that radius would move as normal but the moment it leaves the radius it instantly freezes in place. Unlike some puzzle games where the main mechanic is used sparingly because the level designer couldn't come up with puzzles good enough to use it well, this game is almost ENTIRELY around these mechanics with a couple of small and (again) REALLY well rounded twists to the time dilation mechanic. The level of polish on display here is INSANE. Since the time dilation is a fairly confusing mechanic, great pains were taken to make it extremely obvious and easy to know which objects are currently being affected and how they would move if you were to bring them into your field. The level design is amazing with a slow ramp up to some REALLY challenging puzzles later on that will rack your brains which also require a fair degree of platforming precision. The music is quite good and muted for the most part making for a good background while you conjure up solutions to these conundrums. In fact I have but a SINGLE complaint about this game and that is the platforming isn't precise enough because the character moves a bit too weirdly since he maintains almost all momentum in the air in the direction you point him even after you let your analog stick go making some platforming sections that require some precision a tad difficult. This is one of the puzzle games that you NEED to play. It's innovative and well-used mechanics are on par with some of the industry's best and the degree of polish and love put into this game make it a very enjoyable experience. The game lasts about 6 hours (I replayed it twice because I stopped playing at a certain point to play something else) so for $5-10, this game is definitely worth it.