[Toptube]

So I was activating a humble bundle on Steam and happnened to see a Marquee for "The Swapper".

I....can't remember if I watched the preview video. I don't think that I did. I peaked at the screenshots and read a couple of hype quotes. For whatever reason, the space aesthetic grabbed me and the hype quotes got me to look up a review. I basically guessed the main mechanic from the screenshots. But there is of course a lot to this game mechanically, that I had no idea about.

I skimmed the Eurogamer review very lightly, although they do a good job of avoiding directly talking about spoilers. Through experience, I've found Eurogamer's reviews to be a pretty good gauge for my own tastes. They pretty much praised the game through and through. Saying that not only is it a good game, but it has an intriguingly presented story, that fills out an experience larger than the game one is directly playing.

I decided to buy it. In basic terms, the main mechanic and overall setup make it sort of like 2D "Portal". It also shares in having a story aspect that is more than the gameplay.

I have not finished it yet. I don't play a lot of these indie 2D games as I would usually rather play an actual platformer, than some gimmick puzzle platformer. I am quite absorbed. If any of this sounds or looks good to you, I recommend it. If you have any questions, I will try to answer them without direct spoilers.

Included are some screenshots that give you a tiny taste from the beginning chunk of the game. I tried to illustrate how the game looks as played and its typical presentation. It pretty much gets more beautiful and visually interesting as you go.

[Toptube]

I believe the game is OpenGL based, is locked at 24fps, and makes heavy use of visual filters. It looks great.

The controls seem a bit weird at first. Why they are the way they are becomes clear as you learn about the game. But to a certain degree, the aiming setup probably could have been improved. Due to the 24FPS lock, there is heavy mouse lag. I mapped to a dualshock 3 using Joy2Key. The game plays pretty well this way. So far it doesn't require lightning reflex like Portal. So the controller works well. To be clear, it does not use portals. I was just loosely comparing it to Portal in general gameplay.

[guest253]

looks kinda metrovanic.
is it linear?

[Toptube]

[Brooks]

Looks like an upmarket Little Big Planet, are the movement mechanics less sloppy than in that one?

[Toptube]

[Toptube]

If you are interested in seeing those screenshots larger, try this FB link:

https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=10152869133715713&l=2b469837b2

[Toptube]

So I hear the graphical assets are based on clay models and miniatures

[Toptube]

If you want 60 fps, Open the commonsettings.pro text file and change

IsFilmlookEnabled "True" to "False"


This should eliminate the bad mouse lag. Although It may ruin the atmosphere a bit!

[CubaLibre]

This looks completely awesome?
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Let's Play, starring me.

[skelethulu]

this game is so amazingly beautiful
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[smartblue]

This game is completely awesome. The core mechanics of the game disturb my mind by posing existential questions every time I clone myself and watch myself die. The art is simply amazing, I don't know any other game that has tried this method of physically creating sets and objects and casting filters and lighting effects on them, it's all simply gorgeous.

The puzzles are clever, too.

I'll probably beat it later tonight or tomorrow.

[Ronnoc]

Is this game based on the doll mechanic from that one Castlevania?

[Toptube]

definitely a runner for most beautiful game of the year.

I'm still playing, but something else I like about this game (without spoiling) is that it occasionally presents the player with big red buttons that have no label. That sounds a little more dramatic than I wanted it to, but just know that this game is good at keeping you from feeling like you are in total control of things.

[Toptube]

Finished this. I guess it took me 10 hours?? (that's about double the time I've been seeing in reviews). I did do a lot of jaw dropping and staring at the visuals and setting up screenshots. Otherwise, I never got super stuck on the puzzles. There are a few mind benders near the end that will delay you, however.

I think overall this game deserves status and accolades similar to Portal. Portal's gameplay is a little more thrilling, due to the first person viewpoint and the way you can launch yourself about. But the mechanics here in The Swapper are no slouch, offer plenty of variety for your brain to wrap around, and the mechanics synergize with the story and themes. (you'll see what I mean if you play The Swapper). Whereas with Portal, using portals is just a mechanic. You could swap Portals with some other thing and still have the same story. The Swapper is more beautiful than Portal. This game is a landmark in artistic and visual achievement for videogames.

The Swapper is also expertly paced. The game finishes before the puzzle mechanics have a chance to overstay their welcome and the puzzle types never repeat. Every puzzle is quite different. There are also a few supremely beautiful expositional moments sewn into the experience, that make for a wonderful break from the running around and puzzling.

I think my only complaint is that the ending seemed a tiny bit abrupt. Once the big reveals start rolling in, it's not long until the credits. It didn't seem like quite enough time to fully digest and contemplate the things presented. I mean, the game answers most of the questions for you and does it in a great way. But I just felt like I needed a couple of more minutes to look at the finished puzzle, so to speak.

[nothingxs]

Is this PC only? I might give it a shot.
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select button
i've gotta let go. i've gotta get straight. why'd you have to make it so hard? let me get away.
3DSFC 1736-1476-0518

[Toptube]

Yeah, PC only. It doesn't even have any gamepad support. Though I was able to set up joy2key on a Dualshock 3 and play it happily.

[Victor]

Will happily await Mac port, this looks real neat. Thanks for the heads up.

[Toptube]

[Felix]

"not supported" != doesn't work, it just means there's no expectation of it working

which is fair, as it seems to have relatively hefty requirements, and you wouldn't want to play it on anything intel less than ivybridge

their openGL implementation is quite good though, I generally expect anything that uses openGL natively to work fine on intel graphics in wine

[Toptube]

[Felix]

uh, does it use OpenGL 4.x? because if so it'd be the first game I'd hear of doing that, but 4.x is indeed not on anything other than AMD/nVidia's proprietary drivers yet

[remote]

idle thumbs dudes are saying this game is tonally reminiscent of the movie moon

was already interested, but i might have to buy this one pretty soon

gorgeous-looking game
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letterboxd | last.fm | steam

[Toptube]

They announced today that only 1 week after release, The Swapper is a financial success.


You guys should all play this.

[Toptube]

I can't remember who, but someone in the axe recently asked about system requirements for this game (they specifically wanted to know how videocard dependant the game is, since their system otherwise trounces the listed specs). The official listed specs seem pretty high, and after finally getting some responses, those specs are like a "recommended" or "ideal" spec.

Someone replied and said they play the game without issue on a Geforce 330M equipped laptop. which is like 3 years old. Another person is playing on a Radeon 4670.

[CubaLibre]

The puzzles in this game kill my brain.
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Let's Play, starring me.

[Toptube]

I'm generally not the most puzzle oriented mind, but my brain was able to wrap around all of these without aid. There were a couple of later puzzles that took me some notable time, but I managed to complete them.

[Toups]

this game is well designed and beautiful but it really just made me want to play metroid :(
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[CubaLibre]

Ok, I beat it.

Apparently the ten achievements refer to ten secret rooms of which I found zero. Also, it does not let you reload before the final decision to try the other ending. Reason enough to replay?
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Let's Play, starring me.

[Toptube]

I definitely found 1, maybe 2 of the secret rooms. Not realizing there are several.

The endings are very different and worth seeing.


worth replaying to see it?....well if you think that you will replay the game, especially to try and see some of the hidden stuff, then yes definitely.


If you know that you will never play the game again, then maybe youtube the other ending.


After seeing both endings and whatnot, I've quite enjoyed loosely dissecting the game along with others in the steam forum. Especially since I'm a lot less educated on the areas ecompassing the themes this game is wrapped in. and I find that replaying the game does help you a lot with filling in some gaps for deconstructing the game.

[Toptube]

I just noticed that Motioninjoy has an option to map keyboard/mouse keys to the dualshock 3 :facepalm:

so you don't have to use xpadder or joy2key in tandem, like I did before...

[CubaLibre]

Dunno why you'd play this game with a pad. The aiming is very mouse-driven.
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Let's Play, starring me.

[Toptube]

It really isn't. I mean that it doesn't require the super reflexes that something like Portal does. I had zero complaint about using a gamepad.

[luvcraft]

Finished this last night. Pretty cool game! I love the in-game lighting on photographed models. Kinda makes me wonder if it didn't start out as an experiment in that and then the game idea evolved out of that.

I got the "being a bad person" ending. And I found one of the hidden terminals. Is there a reward for finding all of them?
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[Toptube]

The devs are currently collecting a bunch of controller data so that they can add good controller support for this.




RE: the hidden terminals


I don't think you get any sort of reward. Maybe there's some sort of steam achievement equivalent, I dunno. Mostly, the reward is fleshed out story, via the terminals themselves. I think some of the hidden rooms also have extra rocks in them.

[Toptube]

Now on GoG. Half off for two days:

http://www.gog.com/game/the_swapper

[Toptube]

In November a patch was released which allows Intel based video to run this game. Although there are still reports of some visual glitches or overall lower visual quality. The patch also just generally improves performance. So if you have a low end videocard or an older laptop with nvidia or ATI/AMD in it, you should be fine.

[Toptube]

possible still good steam keys from FB:

RP9T5-VEBI4-YQ8EG
67ZVE-6TZWT-TRCTG
LFVRA-TZ87F-VW0X7
73X6I-Z0MM6-V9LX0
53Q7L-MHNZC-7RY92
RHJRJ-9634J-GHWW2
GBEFN-DWZFX-09A4T
30ADD-6HN8Q-5RW9M


otherwise, The Swapper is 66% off today!

[Tulpa]

all those keys are no good
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[Booter]

[username]

I'm still waiting for them to add in the official controller support.
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http://www.audioatrocities.com/games/castlevania-sotn/clip1.mp3