Imagine you’re one of the original co-creators of the Portal series, one of the most critically acclaimed and popular franchises of all videogames. You’ve finished the sequel and you’re ready to try something new, so you go to a new development studio and get to be head of your own project and then…now what? Where do you go from Portal? Simple, you expand off of what you know, which brings us to Quantum Conundrum.

Quantum Conundrum was released by Airtight Games late June on PC and this past week on PSN and XBL Arcade. As a short synopsis, you are a young boy who is thrown on his crazy inventor uncle’s doorstep and must navigate through his puzzle filled house using an object called the “Inter-dimensional Shift Device” or just
“ISD” for short. Being that there were no retail releases the game was around $15, which may already give you an idea on how Conundrum compares to Portal. And any comparisons between the two are valid because Conundrum is very similar to Portal, due to being designed by the same person. Both Portal and Conundrum are puzzle platformers, featuring a silent protagonist as they navigate through levels of rooms while guided by a strange omnipresent voice. The main elements of each game are there, but each game delivers in areas where the other didn’t.

As an added bonus, the paintings in the mansion change depending what dimension you’re in.

The main difference between the games is the mechanic used to get through the game (duh). In Conundrum’s case it is the “ISD” which in my opinion was a lot more fun to work with than the Portal gun. The ISD has 4 different dimensions you can access, a Fluffy Dimension where everything is 10x lighter, a Heavy Dimension where everything is 10x heavier, a Slow Motion Dimension, and a Reverse-Gravity Dimension. Once you acquire the proper batteries for each dimension you can switch between them at will, making for some really creative puzzles. As an example, one of my favorite things to do was to pick up a huge safe in the fluffy dimension, then throw it and jump on top of it in the slow-motion dimension, then ride it like a wave by switching the reverse-gravity dimension on and off. As you progress the levels will become more difficult employing the use of switching between multiple dimensions quickly, but will never become painstakingly hard. Unlike Portal where most puzzles revolved around the use of gravity, the many dimensions allow for an increased variety in puzzles and in turn better level design.

But that’s where the similarities end. Quantum Conundrum only took me around 4 hours to beat, I am aware that it was only $15 and a downloadable title, but since the game feels and plays so similar to Portal, it is impossible to not compare. When you ask the majority of gamers what made Portal so good, you’ll probably get the mixed response that a combination of novel level design plus great writing/storytelling made the game so loveable. And that’s the problem with Conundrum, the level design and gameplay are great, if not better, but the ability to use dialogue to compel the player further into the game (like GLaDOS did) is not there. While your crazy scientist uncle certainly is quirky, I didn’t necessarily find myself listening to him with as much amusement as I did GlaDOS.

I’ve been thinking about why this was, all the elements are there to make your uncle as great a character as gamerdom’s favorite AI, but why didn’t it work as well? To put it simply, the game isn’t done. Imagine if the original Portal ended right before you get thrown in the fire, or if Portal 2 ended when you put Wheatley into the mainframe. Those games would still have some great levels and would probably stand well on their own, but we would never be introduced to crazy GLaDOS, Cave Johnson, the Portal Paint mechanic, crazy Wheatley, or even Potato GLaDOS. Anyone that’s played both Portals can say that the games really get good when the twist starts and everything that you were just getting used to gets thrown on it’s head. And that’s what’s wrong with Quantum Conundrum, there’s no twist…there’s no second act. Something foreboding starts to happen right at the end of the game, and then suddenly it just ends, just like that, snap. It seems like the game ends with a setup for a sequel, and I sure hope there’s one. But if a sequel does come out, I can guarantee that it will be the missing second act, and it will be glorious.

Review Haiku

ISD better than
Portal, but no Act 2 a
Quantum Conundrum