The Swapper (Puzzle-Adventure)

You might have noticed that I did not add 'Platformer' to the genre of the game, despite having this listed as one. I just can't think of this game as a platfomer. There are no death traps, no enemies to avoid, no coins or baubles to collect... it's simply an adventure game that happens to have some platforms in it.

Let me get some of the technical stuff out of the way before I continue.

The game is configured to work with both PS and X-360 controllers, if you wish to use one. You can adjust the sensitivity of both the controller and the mouse, if you're using the keyboard, through the Options menu. There you can also adjust the screen resolution -- from 640x480 up to 1920x1080 -- the volume, Windowed or Full-screen, etc. I highly recommend making sure the subtitles are ON whilst you're there -- There is an aspect of the story that I totally would have missed if I'd not had the subtitles on. If you want to adjust the keyboard settings, it's on the bottom right of the Options screen.

So how does the gameplay work? Well, I can't elaborate on that too much without giving things away, but I will give you what I can without adding spoilers. I do want to mention that there are hidden areas with extra story (via terminals,) which I knew nothing about until I finished the game. Also, please note that you will get to the point that you realize you are going to have to have Godlike reflexes and tracking abilities to be able to progress in the game... Until you realize that there is a way to slow everything down to a crawl, which will allow you the time you need to get things done. Incredibly helpful, not to mention necessary, since I don't think *anyone* can react that quickly!

Back to the topic at hand, which is the gameplay. You hold a "swapping" device in your hands that has two abilities: First is the duplicate function. What this does is create exact replicas of you, and your replica(s) will mimic every move you make. You can have up to four duplicates at any given time. If they "die" you can create another to take its place, and when your duplicates touch you, they disappear, allowing you to make another. Second is the "swapping" beam. Zap any of your replicas with this beam to have your consciousness transferred to that body. The swapping beam has one more function, and I mention it only because I got completely stuck, having NO idea you could do this: If you are in freefall, you can use the beam to "push" yourself through space.

The game progresses through a series of puzzles based upon these abilities. There are obstacles in that the swapping device reacts differently around colored lights. For instance, you can create a duplicate within red light, but your swapping beam is completely blocked by the red. The opposite holds true within blue light, and so on.

There is one puzzle that requires your bodies to be in exactly the right places (only one that is fiddly that way), one puzzle requires really good timing, and just one had me completely stumped to the point I had to come back to it the next day. Solving the rest of the puzzles ranged from deceptively easy to, "YES!! that felt SO good!!"

You might think by reading the above that this is just a puzzle game, but no -- this is a true adventure at heart, and so deeply environmental that it really feels as if you're problem-solving like you would any day in real life. The devs have achieved this immersion through various ways, which I will describe below.

The music sets the tone so beautifully, so perfectly, that you don't really notice it at first. Never distracting, I was more than once surprised to realize that not only was it was there, that it was lovely to listen to, as well. "Lovely?" you ask, "In an atmospheric psychological horror?" To that I say, "Absolutely!" Just go with it, you'll see what I mean when you play. The voices are done incredibly well, never feeling stilted or out-of-place.

And that brings me to the story, that which binds the whole game together in this richly-woven tapestry. The story progresses in multiple ways. You will occasionally hear voices ( :O ... No, not that kind of "hearing voices"!) as you progress through the game, and, as mentioned, they are very well done. Next up are the terminals, which give you snippets of conversations and orders from the command of this place you're in. Lastly you have the thoughts of... something(s), which I will not give away.

When I first saw the graphics, I thought they looked blurry... fuzzy, even. It's amazing how differently you perceive things when you're actually playing the game yourself, and not just looking at screenshots or a video. Suffice to say that the graphics contribute to the overall feeling of the game. Somehow, The Swapper reminds me of John Carpenter's The Thing. No, there's no parasitic life form trying to assimilate and/or mutilate you, but those feelings... Cold. Alone. Uneasy. It is all of these and more.

This is truly a must-play game for anyone who enjoys a deeply environmental game with a powerful tale to tell... a tale whose full implications I have yet to digest. Better yet, this is a game that can be enjoyed even more upon subsequent play-throughs... And that is something I will be even more happy to do now that I know I missed some of the content my first time through.

Highly recommended!

The Swapper is a platformer puzzle game with excellent atmosphere using unique visuals, clever puzzles and having only a few minor problems.

The graphics have a distinctive look due to the developer's choice of claymation style and the careful use of lighting. The game feels at times lonely, but not hostile; the player doesn't have to combat roaming creatures like in a Metroidvania game. Mostly the game consists of exploring the Thesus V space station which is layed out in a clear and thoughful manner.

Puzzles are the meat of the game which are solved by cloning yourself and swapping places with the clones. All clones move in unison with you which forces careful placement and planning to solve each puzzle room. The last batch of puzzles in the game are deviously clever and had me stumped for hours. But if I can finish the game without help so can you.

There were a few things in the game I didn't care for such as the sentient beings comment boxes overlaying the entire screen and obscuring the view; only momentary, but annoying. Also, despite finding several hidden console rooms I unlocked no achievements, and this seems to be a problem for a few other players.

I can safely recommend The Swapper to anyone that likes to solve puzzles or wants to explore a non-combative environment at a relaxing pace.

The Swapper is a puzzle platform game that was originally released on PC in 2013, and has since been ported to PS3, PS4, Vita, Wii U and the Xbox One. You play the role of a female explorer who finds themselves on an abandoned research station, early into the game you discover the ability to create clones of yourself. This ability is what the game focuses on from then onward.

The gameplay in Swapper is absolutely stellar, we see all too many puzzle platformers release on Steam on an almost daily basis that don't really do anything new and innovating, The Swapper blows this theroy out of the water though. The goal in this game is to find orbs scattered around the space station in order to open doors and activate teleporters to progress further. There is some aspect of metroidvania style games in that you do have to backtrack quite a bit too.

The cloning ability is what really makes this game standout, you can spawn four clones at any one time, and you also gain the ability to swap control over each of them too. The clones follow every action that the character makes, so running, jumping, interacting with objects (even if there is nothing there to interact with). This ability allows you to complete plentiful puzzles, opening doors, flipping switches and collecting orbs. The main element which will end up killing the player, as well as the clones, would be gravity. You will soon find that you can barely fall from any sort of distance as it will kill you. You can save yourself by creating a clone just before you hit the floor and teleporting to it though which is a trick you really need to get a hang of very early on. You can also do this to scale walls and tunnels too.

To add a little bit more challenge into the mix, the game also introduces different light sources which prevent you from doing specific actions such as preventing clones from being spawned in the lighted area, blocking the swap ability, or just plainly stopping you doing anything all together.

The game presents you with a bare structure of a story line, and you are pretty much left to work it out on your own. There are plenty of snippets of story and plot to be found in the game through terminal computers if you want to delve deeper into it.

The Swapper is a gorgeous looking game, playing anything on a 4k resolution should look good, but this game just looks almost photo realistic. The lighting is perfectly done, adding so much atmosphere into each room you enter. The animation of the main character is also done very well too.

As with all puzzle games, I wasn't able to figure out most of the puzzles and had to revert to a walkthrough; after reading the walkthrough there are still points in the game which are skill based, so no matter whether you know how to complete something, you still need to execute a certain level of skill to complete it.

I was able to complete The Swapper in just under seven hours, if you were to do it without a guide, you are looking at about a ten hour playthrough. The game does have ten achievements, which are not related to the main story line at all. They are merely hidden computer terminals that you can try to find throughout the game. This may add a little bit of replay value, however if you aren't into achievement hunting, there isn't any reason to play this game through again for a second time.

The Swapper had no technical issues at all. The game ran perfectly well on all higher resolutions, at a constant 60FPS. The options menu is rather limited, but this game is in effect a 2D side scroller so you can't really expect too much from the technical side of things.

In conclusion, I have to say The Swapper is one of the best puzzle games on Steam to date; and should be played by everyone to experience this masterpiece. This is a showcase of how indie games should be produced and how quickly they can rise to being an extremely popular hit.

Tom's Score Card
1) Stay away
2) Only recommended when on sale
3) Recommended
4) Highly recommended
5) This is a must play

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http://store.steampowered.com/app/231160

This is a puzzle game unlike any other. The clay animations are really well done and the whole concept of creating clones to solve puzzles, is a really neat idea. Add in the ability to swap between these clones and things become very interesting.

You'll get about 5-7 hours out of this game depending on how good you are with the puzzles. They are varied and challenging in the later stages as you become more comfortable with the gameplay.

The atmosphere is really moody, with a full spectrum of white light to pitch darkness. They really do a good job to make you feel like you're in space and completely isolated.

The Swapper is a genre defining leap for puzzle platformers. The developers have shown originality and passion, which are the first two things I look for in any game.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N4nyZkwycEo

Taking control of a lone astronaut, you explore Theseus, a derelict space station. The Swapper immediately brings to mind Super Metroid with it's open map design and emphasis on isolation. The human inhabitants of Theseus have mostly perished and it's up to you to put the pieces together. The space station is filed with sentient rocks that leave you with cryptic messages as you pass by them and, together with crew logs, provide much of the narrative; tantalizing you with little details that must be put together like a puzzle. It's a tale the wanders off in the direction of the metaphysical and philosophical, meditating on what constitutes a sense of self, what exactly the soul means to the individual and and how individuals fit into the rest of society. The esoteric narrative and heavy sense of isolation and dread will have you mulling over the events of The Swapper long after it concludes.

The puzzle gimmick employed by The Swapper comes in the form of a gun that allows your character to clone themself. Up to four clones can be made and these clones mimic your every move. In addition the gun can beam your consciousness into these clones and allow you to take direct control of them. Additional puzzle elements like blue lights that prohibit the creation of clones where their light is cast, red lights that prevent you from taking control of clones and gravity switches that will have you walking on the ceiling all further complicate the proceedings. Your clones must be used to trip switches and reach far away ledges, they are empty vessels that are to used and disposed of and the sight of their lifeless husks collapsing after long falls becomes a frequent occurrence throughout the course of The Swapper. The goal is to our the character that you directly control in contact with orbs that allow you to open doors and progress. These simple gameplay mechanics tie in closely to The Swapper's narrative themes meaning the narrative events never drift too far off into the back of your mind. Few games are able to do this so well.

Puzzle start off very easy as you learn to navigate your environment and are introduced to clever new ways to solve problems within the game world. Much like Portal, The Swapper religiously sticks to it's core mechanics. You don't get any new abilities or skills as the game progresses, instead new obstacles bring new challenges that occasionally elicit head scratching and pensive stares. The first three quarters of the game's three to five hours are really a breeze but the final few puzzles can really put your puzzle solving skills to the test. While the challenge is certainly welcome, this spike in challenge has a habit of disrupting the pacing. Your brisk jaunts between memory stations for more information slow to a crawl near the final area potentially becoming agonizing as the game's mind benders thwart your best attempts to crack them.

The Swapper wouldn't be nearly as engaging if it weren't for it's distinct visual style. Everything in the game was originally molded out of clay by the team at Facepalm studios and in addition to complimenting the narrative themes it looks wonderfully alien and unique among it's contemporaries. Fantastic lighting effects also dress up the stylized art and drive the lonely desperate mood home. Seeing the dark, desolate corridors of Theseus illuminated by a beam from your flashlight as the ambient soundtrack hums in the background can be profoundly melancholy. The measured tempo of the soundtrack never leaves you with a sense of urgency and instead slowly and beautifully builds a hopeless and lonely tone befitting a game that is largely devoid of other characters.

Lots of poor reviews due to Mouse issues at the beginning.......click Properties from Store Library and Beta and select _Compatible mode (or something like that) - fixes mouse problems :-)

Good puzzle game, good hard scifi writing, most puzzles approachable (and can be done in a variety of orders), a few puzzles frighteningly hard. One I could barely manage with a walkthrough. I really, really, really adore the storyline and it excuses a lot -- I had only one problem :

It autosaves after the ending sequence. No restoring from last save, no wandering around picking up things you missed, no new game plus, clicking "Continue" just starts up the credits. You have to make a new profile, delete your save, or hack your save to play again.

Speaking of, if you want to see another ending you will need to play again. Likewise, if you finish the game before finding all of the achievement collectibles in hidden areas, you'll have to play again -- through most of the game, to unlock all the required areas. This is especially heinous because this is A Puzzle Game. Redoing the same puzzles over again is a chore, not a challenge.

Watching a few extra endings on youtube isn't that different from just watching an entire lets play there, and leaves me wondering why I paid for the privelege.

It's a beautiful game with exactly one flaw. Back up your save before making major decisions right near the end of the game. Check the discussion board for other peoples' discussions of this problem, some include a savefile you can use.

The Swapper is an ingenious little puzzle game with a unique gameplay mechanic and eerie plotline that blend together very well.

The puzzles all center around a cloning mechanic, where the device the player wields is able project up to 4 clones and also transfer consciousness of the player between them. Certain light wavelengths interfere with the device to add to puzzle complexity (for example, red light blocks transferring the mind of the player to a clone). The puzzles range from obvious to abstract, with the simplest puzzles at the start of the game. However, later puzzles vary massively in how difficult they are (depending on the player). Some puzzles may seem obvious to one individual, but will require a lot of trial & error for other players. There was one puzzle in particular that had me stumped for a long time, but upon completing it I realised it was actually quite simple and that many players would probably breeze past it quickly.

TS starts with the player finding themself on a seemingly abandoned space station and very slowly introduces a plot which the player can entirely ignore if they see fit. The narrative is interwoven in the game through a few small scenes voiced by a mysterious other astronaut, some terminals with logs to read, and through messages conveyed to the player by rock samples scattered around the station. Quite like Dark Souls, it is up to the player to investigate the story and piece it together, and you are rewarding with a rather intriguing one if you bother.

The creepy atmosphere of this game is realised through some quite clever visual and audio tricks. The graphics alone are not very impressive, but the way lighting is used cleverly hides the imperfections and creates a very unique art-style which I adored. The soundtrack comes and goes but always leaves you feeling isolated and alone. Whenever the silence was punctured by speech of the other astronaut, I found I immediately stopped whatever I was doing to lap up all of the audio I could just to find a little solace in the company of someone other than the empty clones. It is the interplay between the art-style, the audio, and the clone mechanic that makes the atmosphere of this game so incredible.

If all this wasn't enough, I thought the one single choice you have to make in the entire game was probably one of the most poignant moments in any game I have played. It was incredibly difficult to make and left me with a real lasting impression and that feeling in the pit of my stomach that made me wonder whether the decision was the right one or not.
Be warned: this game is meant to be played through in big chunks, shown by an ending that has so much impact if you have been following the plot and really immersing yourself. If you play this game in small portions then the atmosphere, plot and impact will probably not hit as hard.

Strap-up, blast off, and lose your sanity amongst the talking rubble and deathly-silent human clones.

If you like this, check out Talos Principle, if you like Talos Principle, check this out, if you don't know either of them but enjoyed Portal, definitely check these two out

(Full review follows below)

• Game Name: The Swapper
  
• Original Release: 2013
  
• Genre Tags: Atmospheric; 2D; Puzzle-Platformer; Sci-Fi
  
• My Overall Grade: A-
  
• Estimated Playtime (Campaign): 3-5 hours
  
• Multiplayer Aspect: None
  
• Recommended To: Established fans of the genre; Those intrigued by the genre; Aesthetes; Game atmosphere connoisseurs; Strong narrative advocates; Puzzle game aficionados

The Swapper is an enjoyable 2D puzzle-platformer that lacks gameplay innovation but rises above the crowd on the shoulders of its superbly well-designed atmosphere and provocative narrative. The actual puzzle-solving aspect of the game is adequate, but with minimal diversity and accretion. It is definitely a story-driven experience, with the gameplay taking a passenger seat. If you can appreciate a game in that style, this is a good bet for you.

The entrancing narrative and the style in which it transpires work in concert with the mystifying ambiance to create a wondrous experience. The story touches on some thought-provoking metaphysical issues, while skillfully avoiding a fall too deep into the rabbit hole to keep the average person’s interest. Much of the rest of the narrative is comfortable, cliché sci-fi tropes that we all know and love.

The gameplay and the puzzles are far from bad, but they also are nothing special. As I alluded to: they are sufficient, but fail to develop into anything overly interesting. Very little changes from the first puzzle to the last, so it does get a little bit dry. That said, some of the later ones are quite tricky and a few require not only puzzle-solving ability but also decent reflexes.

The graphics are pleasurable and align perfectly with the vibe of the game. But the whole soundscape is what truly brings the atmosphere of The Swapper to life. The ambient soundtrack, the cryptic chatter, and the selectively placed voice-overs contribute a wonderful blend of emotions and mystery. If you are into it, this is a game you might enjoy with the lights off and your headphones on (or however else you may get into the zone).

The Swapper is a brief, interesting, and enjoyable experience. It is not a complex or intricate puzzle-platformer, but I recommend it to any fan of the genre who would appreciate the atmosphere and narrative.

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