The game is a 2D side scroller where you can create clones of yourself which mimic your movement and you can also swap into those clones to solve puzzles with switches and pressure plates to find out what happened on a derelectic space station stranded on a planet. Fitting to the central mechanic is also a bit philosophy about what is the mind etc. involved, but not as explicit as in Soma.

The puzzles are not so convoluted that you don’t understand what you need to do, but also not so easy that it’s just busywork. The art style is a bit different, because they modelled everything in clay and then digitized it, leading to a pretty unique style. Together with the sparse lightning it creates a wonderful eery atmosphere in the space station. The story plays into this atmosphere, but it is not the main focus of the game. Still, I found a certain philosophical concept they introduced fascinating, because I never thought about it.

story spoiler

Namely, the concept of minds without senses and the concept of the great chain they developed out of this. In the middle of the game you learn that the planet is not without life at all. But it is life in the form of rocks that don’t have any sensory organs but are telepathic in their surrounding area. Which means they don’t have any feeling for where the other rocks are, but just that they can speak with some and don’t speak with a lot of others. But in a long chain they can speak over vast distances. When they are taken for studying by the humans, they realize that they got cut off from that great chain and wonder what could be the reason. Only later do they find out it was done by another life form, us humans. And we exemplify completely alien concepts to them: none telepathic and apparently able to interact with something called “space”.

So all in all it is a fun little game of around 5h with a little bit of philosophical concepts if you want to think about it or just some neat puzzles and atmosphere if you don’t.

  • rayon@lemm.ee
    0·
    3 months ago

    It used to be my favorite game before I played Outer Wilds. That was a while back, aah the nostalgia… The Swapper’s graphics are also quite unique and aged pretty well I think.

  • slimerancher@lemmy.worldEnglish
    0·
    3 months ago

    I think I played it on Vita. Remember loving it when I played it. As you said, the game wasn’t too difficult, nor too easy.

    I just looked it up at psnprofiles to see if I Platinumed it, and turns out I only cleared 2 out of 10 chapters. (Also there is no Platinum trophy) Guess it’s time to give it another go.

    Edit: Just looked up the trophy details. They are tied to hidden collectables not chapters, so I did finish the game 😀

  • inb4_FoundTheVegan@lemmy.world
    0·
    3 months ago

    Oh goodness that takes me back, I remember enjoying that one a long time ago. Super unique mechanics and puzzles but you’re right, on the shorter side.

    Will absolutely second your recommendation.

  • Cyyris@infosec.pub
    0·
    3 months ago

    I remember being obsessed with this one when it first came out! It might be time for a replay on my Steam Deck!

    • Wrufieotnak@feddit.orgOP
      0·
      3 months ago

      Just checked the steam discussions and it seems a bug was introduced somewhere in between that makes the game crash when a transmission message is opened in game due to a bug with the interaction between game and steam.

      A workaround is to just play through the game with Steam shut down completely, which works fine. The downside is that after collecting any Message from Home, that save file will be unplayable if you run the game from Steam - the game will always hang at startup. But, it will update your achievements first!

  • GSz@kbin.earth
    0·
    3 months ago

    I remember playing it on a PS4 - not sure if it was part of the PS+ or one I bought on a sale. My son was a teenager at the time, and he liked mostly sports games, and that’s what the PS4 was for - FIFA and NBA2K. But from time to time I would sample some games to my liking, this one was one of those I actually completed.

    Loved the aesthetics and the mechanics of the game play, the story ending was probably its weakest point, but the game itself was great.

    Thanks for sharing, might need to boot that old PS4 again.