Antichamber Review

We've all encountered games with mechanics that are difficult to describe, but when you find a game where even the concept is difficult to put into words, you know you've come across something singular. Is Antichamber a puzzler with platforming elements? A philosophical examination of the boundaries of physical laws? A recreation of what a prison designed by Escher might have looked like? The answer, of course, is that it's a mixture of all of these, and while the result is a game that's not easily described, it's also one that's easily recommended if you're a fan of games that hide plentiful moments of satisfaction behind an array of fiendishly perplexing puzzles.

There's no real plot to Antichamber: it simply drops you into a puzzle-filled maze and asks you to escape from it. Calling it a maze is probably a bit of an understatement, though, as Antichamber gleefully frees itself from any kind of adherence to the ways in which we experience the real world. Passages appear in rooms where they couldn't possibly exist, the tops of stairways are often also their bottoms, and you'll often turn around to retrace your steps only to find that an entirely new path has appeared to replace the one you were on just a second earlier. This is initially as disorienting as it sounds, but as I played, my brain eventually adapted to the bizarro construction of the space I was exploring, and a very strange kind of spatial logic began to emerge.

Puzzling Conundrums

Even if you coasted through most of the Portal games without any problems, you're still likely to come up against some real roadblocks here. Some puzzles have multiple solutions, though, and the free exploration helps abate most frustration, since you can always wander off and attempt another challenge if you find yourself stuck. There are few things as satisfying in gaming as grasping the solution to a seemingly unsolvable obstacle, and Antichamber offers up dozens of those moments.

Not all the puzzles are winners, of course. It's often difficult to tell whether a puzzle is optional, leading me to occasionally spend a good amount of time on a challenge only to find that it unlocks a door leading to a location I'd already discovered. Other puzzles (usually the hardest ones) lead to rooms with details on Antichamber's development. It's fun to peruse this extra information, but spending half an hour on a puzzle to find an Easter egg instead of another step towards the exit is sometimes deflating.

A Brick House

There aren't any discrete levels or loading screens, so you're free to explore as you like, and you can expect to backtrack a fair amount to retry puzzles that initially stumped you. Early puzzles are simple affairs, but you'll soon stumble across an assortment of "brick tools," each of which is capable of manipulating the maze's variety of floating blocks in different ways, which complicates matters somewhat. Moving bricks around might sound like a bit of an indie game cliche by this point, but Antichamber finds some ingenious ways to use them, such as when I first realized I could construct my own elevators.

As a first-person puzzler that encourages you to break free from the laws of physics, Antichamber immediately invites comparisons to Portal. It has a very different tone, though: whereas Portal is focused on humor, Antichamber seems to intend to evoke reflection in its players. You'll often come across wall placards with gnomic utterances that comment on a puzzle you just completed or offer a vague hint on a challenge in front of you, or occasionally just a bit of bite-sized food for thought, e.g. "The choice doesn't matter if the outcome is the same," or "A path may not be right or wrong. It may just be different." These little snippets are often closer to the level of fortune cookies than zen koans, but still offer some interesting perspectives on the puzzles that they're placed near.

You Think That's Air You're Breathing?

If you wish to ignore the placards and focus on the puzzles, though, that's certainly a viable way to approach things, and you'll be rewarded with some brain-scratchers of the sort that require your mind to shift to a new perspective or logical approach to get past them. One of Antichamber's biggest accomplishments lies in its dogged insistence that you overwrite your expectations of what can transpire in a game world with its own set of unique rules, and even then you'll only succeed when you realize just how malleable those rules really are.

Antichamber is a work of great originality, and it combines that uniqueness with some incredibly well-designed puzzles. It relentlessly challenges you to reconsider your preconceived notions about how to interact with the space around your character, in ways that seem more innovative and daring than any other game in recent memory. It's not going to be up your alley if you demand deep storytelling or graphical pizazz, but if you're in the mood to flex your imagination, Antichamber is a finely rewarding experience.