Parallax

Parallax is a fun and creative first-person puzzle game where you have to tackle not one, but two overlapping worlds, trying to solve each level's complex puzzle/s, in a timely fun, mind scratching, and "wait, what?" manner. The game has a simple graphic style that's customizable if you don't like the black and white, with extremely slick and smooth, not filled with unnecessary flashiness, main menu and UI, which I really appreciate considering most games have slow responding menu and UI. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=be3xJirysqs The controls are simple with normal movements and a mouse click interaction. The soundtrack is neat and fitting with how the game looks, and just overall the game has a slick smooth gameplay experience with a lot of creative puzzles that look really cool and is actually fun to play around in. I couldn't find the Vodka though. There isn't a story or anything in the game, unless it's hidden and I couldn't find it, it's just a straight out fun puzzle game with a handful of them to finish, and I had fun solving all the puzzles, confusing at times of course, but with how the levels were designed, making me think with dimensional portals, I had a fun time solving them. For the asking price and for the creative fun content you'll play around with, it's definitely worth the purchase and playthrough. Also, I'm hoping that the developers would think of adding a level editor and Steam workshop for community created levels, if the game sells well, and if that's the case, then buy two copies, because if it has a level editor and new levels coming in, the value of the game doubles in my eyes, so let's hope it sells well to merit a level editor. Shameless [url=http://ksalue.com/_/review/my-thoughts-on-parallax-review-r720]link[/url] to original post

If you've played Portal or Antichamber and liked it you should absolutely get this game. Visually it should reminds me of Antichamber but with a lot more polish. The puzzle mechanics are minimalistic but they all blend really nicely. I'm a little disappointed that you can't see your best level performance anywhere. The replay value is raised quite a lot by challenging yourself to beat each level as fast as possible. Update as of 2015-03-26: The developers has done so many amazing things to improve this game for our little niche of speedrunners. While it still doesn't keep track of best performance the game now has a much more detailed in-game timer and in speedrun mode there's a timer for your full run as well. Huge amounts of praise to Toasty.

I'll start by saying Parallax and The Talos Principle are [i]the[/i] first-person puzzlers of the past 12 months. At their core, they are each archetypal puzzle games: begin at a starting point and arrive at a predetermined goal with the means provided using logic and reasoning. Like any well-constructed puzzle game, the levels start simple and gradually become more complex while introducing more concepts which build upon themselves. However, they are also much different from one another. TTP is immersed in a story which drives and motivates the player (much like Myst or Portal) with its mystery and philosophical ideas. It has large, beautiful environments that provide enough to explore and add to the experience. Parallax is a straightforward puzzler. There is no story, no environments or landscapes to explore, nothing -- just level after level of puzzles. But this isn't exactly a negative. The game really works in its simplicity. It somehow creates a lot of incentive in the player to move forward and to complete the game (I would say [i]at least[/i] to the extent of the recent Qbeh-1: The Atlas Cube and non-director's cut Q.U.B.E.). The unique concept to this game are the portals to a parallel "world." The portals shouldn't be dismissed as a sort of copy of those from the Portal series. They are only alike in name and that you walk through them. The portals here lead to and from another environment that has elements connected to both environments and also has elements local to only each respective environment. The player moves to and from each environment to activate switches and traverse to other portals in order to reach the goal. The swtiches can rotate portals the opposite direction so that the player can enter once inaccessible switches or portions of the level, and the switches can even rotate portions of the level itself. The level design is mostly very intelligent. Most have that "aha!" moment. And I really think it is because of those moments that the player is rewarded and driven. There are a small number of poorly designed levels, ones which make use of laser beams that have no purpose to the overall puzzle and only hinder the player's ability to traverse, and ones that obscure the player's ability to see where switches lead and what they activate. It is a wonderful exercise of the mind, and it is a rewarding experience. Any fan of the genre would be sorry to miss this addition. I only hope a level editor becomes available before interest subsides.

A puzzle game that has Anti-Chamber feel on it. it got 2 Dimensional Rift (Black-White dimension and White-Black dimension). Solving the puzzles mean you have to go back and forth through these dimension. The puzzles are carefully made. You can get a perfect score if you make the minimum amount of action to solve the level. With each progress you will learn a new mechanicsm like switches, rotating platforms, boosters and gravity. Falling down means death but you will be respawn to the place before you fell. After playing for a while I realize you can change the game colour from black-white to any other else. The only thing that's lack on this game is story. There is no story at all.

Preface: This review was written after completing the game with all Perfect ranks. Parallax is one of these small gems you tend to overlook while browsing through the vast collection of games Steam has to offer. Nowadays every new puzzle game has to have a unique gimmick to it to make it interesting and challenging for the player. In Parallax's case, it's parallel dimensions coupled with some gravity defying platforms in the later levels. The challenge is fair and balanced and the difficulty increases steadily as you progress through the game. While some levels can look quite intimidating at first, with a bit of thought, careful planning and memorization you can beat everything fairly fast and achieve perfect level completion within very few actions. Even if Parallax doesn't break any new grounds in the audiovisual department, its simple yet futuristic looking monochromatic art style along with electronic beats lend themselves well to the game creating a pleasant overall experience. The game's price is perfect for its length of 4 chapters with 8 levels each and it still has a lot of replayability to offer after completion. As of March 14th 2015, the developers have already added a game mode specifically designed for speedrunners, which will exponentially increase Parallax's lifespan. If you're a fan of first person puzzle games that are not only well designed, but offer substantial replay value, then you mostly likely already own Parallax. On the slim chance you don't, buy it. You certainly won't regret the purchase. The Good: - Balanced difficulty - Very good level design - Simple, but fitting audiovisuals - Good replay value The Bad: - Might be too short for some players

Let me begin saying that I have played through several first person puzzle games, and I've enjoyed every one of them. I enjoy a good puzzle on occasion. Knowing this, I was excited to play Parallax. I've finished the game, and I only used a guide for the very end of the last stage of the last chapter because the lasers before the turnstile confused me (I didn't think you could go under them). So, I give Parallax credit for being relatively simple but not too simple to the point where it was child's play. For some reason though, I found Parallax incredibly boring! And not the relaxing kind of boring either. It's not like I haven't played similar games in the past (Hook and Colortone come to mind). It took me about a month or so to force myself to play through this game. It isn't even that long! I did it in 3.5 hours. Those felt like the longest 3.5 hours of my life. After one or two stages, I experienced extreme Parallax fatigue. There are no jump scares, but part of me wishes there was something so it could wake me up to play this game longer than 30 minutes.

A sorely under-recognized game. The developer claims that it's a puzzle-platformer, but this game plays more like a puzzle game than a platformer despite the platforming features. Overall the game is very well done. The art style is very minimalistic, even more so than Antichamber: just two colors in the entire game, menu and all. Really my only complaints would be that there aren't customizable color schemes and there's no thematic music on the dark side of all the puzzles. If you think that the game has no narrative or story, you'd be right, but let's face it: gaming for gaming's sake hasn't been appreciated enough. Estimated initial playtime: 3-6 hours (for 32 levels). It's as solid a game as (say) The Swapper! I give it an 8/10 rating.

Game looks very cool, but it's not a very good puzzle game. The puzzles are simultaneously simple, while also very long and complicated. Basically imagine a simple 2d line maze, but with a lot of teleporters and switches. That is effectively what this entire game is, just in a slick 3d presentation. There are never any "aha" moments. It's just a series of fancy mazes.

Starts out fun and is definitely clever in some aspects but gets boring way too quickly.

Its a mind bending puzzler that will work for some, but I am not among them.