When Antichamber came to Steam January 31st I wasn’t quite sure what to make of it. I don’t often play first person, puzzle, platformer games. That is until I watched the preview trailer, and I thought ty myself ‘this isn’t a game to miss out on’ and I was right.
In Antichamber you play as an anonymous character stuck in, well, a chamber. The first area you inhabit is basically your headquarters. Within your HQ each wall offers a different resource, excluding the floor and ceiling. One wall has the map which aids you in navigating through the different chambers. One has the game options which will let you change the screen resolution among other things. Another contains all the posters you collect throughout the game and the last one is a glass wall that shows a door with the word exit over it.
When you begin Antichamber you’re devoid of any items, but you soon find there are some puzzles you can’t complete without that certain item, and that is the brick tool. The brick tool is basically a gun that shoots and absorbs different colored bricks you find throughout the game. There are five guns in total each of which has different abilities.
In the beginning the map only offers a single chamber. When you progress farther the areas you discover will be added to your map. The map will also let you know what areas can be explored further, and which ones have been fully explored so you don’t waste time going back to areas you have already been through.
As you play through Antichamber you will find black and white posters. You’ll discover that the posters aren’t just simple pictures, and when activated they change into words of wisdom that will help out on a current puzzle, or maybe just a clever message.
I enjoyed the use of misdirection in Antichamber. I could be navigating one hallway and end up somewhere I’d already explored, and when I thought about turning around old hallway was gone. It got trippy a few times, but in a good way.
The soundtrack was nice too. It reminds me of calming music you would listen to before going to bed, or to help you in calmly solving a puzzle.
I really enjoyed my playthrough of Antichamber. I also rage quit a few times because I became disgruntled I was stuck on a puzzle, but in the end I was glad to have played it. Lately there hasn’t been many games that I’ve played in which I had to actually think hard to conquer. It’s definitely worth checking out.
+Fun platforming
+Mind bending puzzles
+Calming music
Review Score: 9/10
Author: Zach Zellmer
MIT Gamelab