The Swapper; stupid name, good game

[Flip]

I bought this indie game for $10-11 bucks on Steam the other day and am now three hours into it. Its a very pretty puzzle game that has a Limbo and Braid feel, but set in a space station. The atmosphere is bleak and creepy while the story slowly unfolds as you run around solving 2D platform puzzles. Your toolis a sci-fi gun that can make copies of yourself with a right click and then it can also move your 'consciousness' into one of the clones with a left click. The clones can die off and everything is ok, but you cant die with the body you are 'in' or you game over.

I'm enjoying this game and i'm sure it will only be 4 or 5 hours long, which is all you expect from a cheap indie puzzler. The atmosphere, music, voice, and sound effects are all top notch and you get absorbed. What is slightly annoying is the fact that this game exists, though. There should be a whole new genre of puzzle game called indie puzzler where you get one gimmick and then have to complete a dozen or so levels with it. Braid, Portal, Winterbottom, this game... they all just take a few tricks and turn it into a game. Granted, they do it beautifully with great graphics and an intriguing story, but games like this never used to exist 5 or 6 years ago.

I think we should come up with a clever... thing... and make levels around it. It seems to be the new way to make a million bucks in indie gaming.

[Eric]

So you fixed it? Nice, I added it to my Wish List

[Flip]

So you fixed it? Nice, I added it to my Wish List

Yes, i think the 3rd option you posted fixed it. I posted a reply in that thread, i think it was a resolution issue.

[Flip]

Sort of proud of myself for completing this game without having to look up any of the puzzle room answers. Maybe they werent all that hard, but even still, like most people, i had to look up a few solutions to games like Braid and Portal/2.

This game is phenomenology animated and the gameplay itself is very top notch. Atmosphere... total absorption with the lights low and sound high. I would say its worth your $10 (maybe the sale is over and its back up to $15). The story is rather convoluted, and intriguing, but in the credits i saw that Jonathon Blow was a play-tester, so maybe he had a hand in its Braid-esque feel.

[SineSwiper]

Yeah, just finished it. (And Otto thanks nobody.)

Very good game, even if I wished the gameplay had, errrr, faster elements. Unlike something like Braid or Portal, this is strictly a puzzle game, but it's one with dripping with intrigue, enough to keep you playing and figure out the puzzles.

The ways you abuse and dispose of the clones seems almost unreasonable. I mean, just to get above various ledges and move about around the ship involves killing dozens of clones. You get used to it, but that's the disturbing part.

[SineSwiper]

End game spoilers:

Spoiler: show

The game and the ending is pretty depressing all around. Most of the crew dies to the sickness. The female metacrisis ends up stuck in a Watcher rock, probably in agony and in worse shape than they were. (Other folks had tried to dump themselves into a Watcher as well, with mixed results.) The Sisyphus Project is a total bust. All of the stations eventually went dark and the station is derelict for 100 years. The Watchers survive, but they can't die, anyway.

And the main character, the scavenger clone, is stuck with either ending her life, or swapping with the rescue guy and probably getting caught and/or killed in the process.

[Flip]

Spoiler: show

Yeah that game is really eerie, i like it a lot. I think it was worth a play through even if the story doesnt exactly explain everything... which is what also what adds to the eeriness, though. Its brings up some interesting theories and i remember thinking about it offline a lot in the week after i finished it. Luckily, the choice at the end doesnt make much of a difference, but it is annoying that you dont get to immediately go back and do the other choice, i had to watch the alternate ending on you tube.

[Shrinweck]

This game was good. I thought the ending was really well done and clearly thought

Spoiler: show

that swapping with the would-be rescuer was inherently evil. At best you're outright murdering the dude to save yourself. On the other spectrum, you've merged your mind into someone else, forever changing yourself into something different, losing yourself in any meaningful way any way. You've effectively still ended your life. The other choice is an existential decision to take responsibility for your actions and end things on your own terms, putting an end to a cycle that has been fucking things up for the Watchers for hundreds of years. I'm kind of surprised how nonchalantly the rescue crew reacts to the person they came to save committing suicide. That would make me feel really, really shitty.

Potential sequel in being trapped in the mind of the head Watcher but it's also a good game in being left where it is and not potentially ruining some of the mystery.

[Eric]

It's on sale on steam for $7.50 atm.

[Shrinweck]

Everyone should buy this who owns a PC and enjoys puzzle games and cool ass stories.

[SineSwiper]

And yet nobody is taking my recommendation to go buy and play Antichamber.

[Eric]

And yet nobody is taking my recommendation to go buy and play Antichamber.

Sir, sir....Antichamber is good, but it's not on sale atm. :p

[Shrinweck]

Yeah I'm happy with my bounty from the summer sale and GW2. I've got Total War Rome 2 in a month, too mmm