I’m not much of a platform gamer, but I do love some puzzles. Quantum Conundrum combines first person platforming with puzzles as well as a healthy dose of humor to make a game that is highly enjoyable. While I found myself frustrated at times, this was due mostly to my own limitations in the platforming department, and not because of the game.
Players take on the role of a young lad visiting his uncle’s house. In this case his uncle is Professor Quadwrangle, a bit of a mad scientist from an apparently long line of such people. And “visiting” may be a bit of an overstatement. Essentially the young hero is unceremoniously dumped at the mansion right as something goes wrong. The good (mad) professor is trapped in another dimension, and now our hero needs to restart the generators to power up… well, that’s to be told by playing through the game.
Played from a first person perspective, Quantum Conundrum is the type of platforming puzzle game which has some simple premises, but the execution demonstrates just how deep the gameplay goes, especially with its physics-based puzzles. Players will take safes (initially) and use them as stools on which to climb to higher places or on switches to open doors. Safes, however, are heavy, and this is where the different dimensions come in.
Five different dimensions will be present in the game. The first is the normal, everyday dimension that you and I are in, right now. Go ahead, try to pick up a safe. It’s heavy. The first dimension that is unlocked is referred to as Fluffy Dimension, where everything is, literally, fluffy. As one might imagine, everything is light and fluffy, so a normally heavy object is easily lifted and moved into position. Simply switching back and forth between these dimensions will solve a number of puzzles using the available safes, but not all – not by a long shot.
Other dimensions include Heavy, Reverse Gravity and Slow Motion. As the game progresses you will need to not only switch back and forth between these dimensions, but at a rather quick pace. Switch to fluffy, pick up a crate and throw, switch to slow motion, jump the gap, switch to reverse gravity and have the safe hit a switch on the roof to open a door. Well, you get the idea.
Some of the humor is visual in nature – read the book titles and check out the paintings. The script is decent, but the delivery is great. Scoring John DeLancie as the voice of Professor Quadwrangle certainly helped. There are some limitations, however, as there are a limited number of titles of books and the repeat too often.
What doesn’t Quantum Conundrum have? Cooperative play. By its very nature the single player puzzle bit would pretty much forbid 2 players working together as a gameplay mechanic as the puzzle would have to be completely different, and having puzzles that need to be solved by 2 players would eliminate solo gameplay. Still, I’m sure that given some time a way to add in some co-op gameplay could be figured out.
I should also mention the music. I really liked it. Chris Ballew (PUSA, Caspar Babypants, The Giraffes) worked on the score. The soundtrack was available to those who pre-ordered the PC version, but not anybody else. Hopefully it will be given a wider release.
Quantum Conundrum was fun to play through. There was humor, challenges, and … well, that was about all that was needed.