Quantum Conundrum Preview: Now Youre Thinking Outside the Portal!

Comparisons between Quantum Conundrum and Portal are inevitable. The lead designer of the Portal games, Kim Swift, left just before the release of Portal 2 to lead Airtight Games. Quantum Conundrum is their first release coming out later this summer. Just like Portal, it is a first person puzzle game where you the player have to get through a series of rooms solving puzzles utilizing a prototype invention with reality altering capabilities, all the while an omnipresent voice comments upon your progress. As you can see it is not difficult to make the comparison.

Thankfully the formula has not worn thin and is helped by the fact that Quantum Conundrum works in a very different spaces than Portal did. Instead of creating doorways with very serious science in the rooms, you solve the puzzles by altering the nature of reality. Switching between dimensions, not throwing walk-through holes in the walls.

The demo showed off three states of reality which were not quite like our own: Heavy dimension, Fluffy dimension and Slow-mo dimension. You switch between them with a flick of a button and the world changes its state accordingly. For instance, to get by a laser, a box has to be in Heavy dimension to survive, but you can't pick it up in that dimension because it is too heavy. To get by you have to switch into Fluffy dimension, pick up the box, throw it and change to Heavy dimension before walking safely through. It is a lot of fun and really gives your brain a run for its money. Before you were thinking with portals, with Quantum Conundrum you will have to think with dimensions.

But the real fun is with the world the adventure takes place in. Not only do the natural properties of object change between dimensions, but so does the environment. Where in regular reality the walls and floors are wood paneled, Fluffy dimension changes everything into a highly cutesy saccharine overload version of the room you were just in and Heavy dimension turns the room into something out of a Megadeth music video. In one room there was a portrait of a short man dressed in British hunting gear standing by a tiger, but change the dimension and the portrait also changes. In Fluffy dimension it becomes a picture of a kitten sized tiger with overly large anime eyes, while in heavy dimension the man is now dressed in leather biker gear alongside a saber tooth tiger. Many fun little details like this could already be found in the demo.

The premise of the story is you are a boy off to meet your scientist uncle who gets trapped in another dimension and you have to find him. Simple enough. Throughout the game John de Lancie as Q, I mean Discord, I mean Professor Fitz Quadwrangle will comment on your progress and fill you in on some of the details like the basics of the dimensions or extra collectables or just add color with some really off the wall humor.

Again like Portal the game is really funny. But it also exists in a slightly different space. Portal was filled with black humor, whereas Quantum Conundrum’s humor is best described as wacky. For instance, each time you die a very blunt continue screen pops up eased with a random joke. “You are dead. Thing #74 you will never get to experience: watching your favorite childhood TV shows get turned into terrible movies.” It is a little dark, but the presentation is so skewed that it doesn’t come across as such.

The whole ethos of the game is different to that of Portal. Instead of science gone wrong, it is much more like a Saturday morning cartoon adventure. It’s about having fun in imaginative new worlds and strange concepts for all ages. Quantum Conundrum is best described as a game I can see parents playing with their kids. It manages to hit that sweet spot of being accessible and appropriate for kids, while still having something adults can latch onto and appreciate. Just like a good Pixar movie.

Quantum Conundrum, like Portal before it, looks to be one of the more thematically deep games of the year. It doesn’t seek to go into the same areas Portal did - nor should it. It seems to be creating something different by invoking the childlike adventures using imagination and wonder to see something fantastical. If the game can stick the landing the demo set up than it going to be a Game of the Year contender.

Quantum Conundrum is developed by Airtight Games and published by Square Enix. It is due for release on the XBLA, PSN and PC later this summer.