Quanect

Норм

With the core idea that you can jump from one point in space to the same point, but in a different reality, Quanect has a very interesting and potentially mind-bending concept. In games such as Portal, you would navigate one reality but have to come up with unusual ways of connecting said reality to itself; in Quanect, you have to navigate multiple realities at the same time. Unfortunately, I see several issues with the current (February 2021) state of this game: [olist] [*] The game is still unfinished. After not even a dozen small levels, your progress is blocked by a note from the developer thanking you for playing, and informing you that the subsequent levels are a work in progress that will be released with the next update. This “next update” would have been in the making for almost three years now. [*] The game’s advertising is misleading; [olist] [*] It claims that the device you use “repeats your movements in another reality” (technically not wrong, but it made me expect time loops and puzzles akin to Braid) [*] “Portals serve to work between realities” which they don’t. All portals in the game move you through space within the same reality, except for one in the last level which is black, teleports you right back to itself, and is probably just broken. [*] The trailer asks you to “Get out alive” which you cannot do because (a) the game does not have any real ending and (b) the only failure state is when you fall onto a black surface, which just teleports you back to the entrance. There is no sense of threat to your life whatsoever. [/olist] [*] The game could heavily benefit from visual cues in the level design. You have no clue where a button that the door in front of you might be, if you can even see the door (as opposed to having a part of the wall shift away); you don't always have a clue what a particular button does (usually there is a green line leading somewhere, but not always; some locations that you need to reach are rather hard to make out without carefully peeking in every direction in every dimension until you realize that there is actually a walkable platform above you. Besides that, many of the rooms are very large with very litte in them, which could be remedied with some more interesting design elements. [/olist] All in all, as someone who sometimes creates prototypes for game mechanics I think might turn out interesting, I’d be proud to bring it to a state similar to that of Quanect—but I would not be proud enough to publish it as a commercial, non-early access title.