i would recommend this for people who are patient and have at least a decent sense of spatial awareness (aka not me). it's an invisible maze with lasers and balls. it's not really my thing but i can't fault the game for that. maybe i'm being too nice but i think ilzard is making cool work. i don't regret paying full price and i definitely won't refund this.

if there’s a common element which threads together developer ilzard’s body of work thus far, it’s likely spatial navigation. both words prove relevant. nix umbra immensely complicates its sense of traversal primarily through disorientation and obfuscation. despite the relative frankness of its premise – time-based survival – its mechanics are cloaked enough to ensure that managing to wander undeterred in its shaded woods for even thirteen minutes will comfortably slot you in the top 50 of the title’s global leaderboards. the player’s only choice in nix umbra is to shrewdly maneuver impenetrable darkness, flailing wildly at the binaural screeching of violin strings indicating oncoming threats, and simultaneously attempting to process an occult set of mechanics which intentionally withholds its peculiarities. it’s hard not to reflect on the cosmos while playing, too. obviously traipsing around in pitch-black makes you vaguely feel like you’re navigating some sort of eschatological abyss unknown to man, but one mechanic the game declines to explicate involves using the stars above as a compass guiding you towards health & mana replenishing crystals in the woods. the game’s title translates roughly to “snow shadow” from latin – and as snowfall will occasionally dot the screen, it's difficult not to think of marine snow in the deepest zones of the ocean despite the game’s terrestrial concerns. as above, so below.

intraquartz represents a similar kind of disorienting spatial navigation. it is every bit as concerned with swirling depths as its predecessor is, albeit with a conceit which forces the player to adopt a mindset antithetical to survival in nix umbra. nix umbra’s swift and reactive gameplay recalls the pace of an arena shooter, where daring to stop is flirting with death, but while playing intraquartz it becomes clear that every action taken must be carefully weighed and considered, often for seconds at a time. this is because instead of obscuring your vision to a couple of meters ahead of you as in nix umbra, intraquartz renders every single path within the game’s various crystals completely invisible. nix umbra’s cold, apocalyptic void is substituted for the celestial gossamer of gems, each containing a microscopic, alien, and seemingly expansive inner galaxy. within each gemstone is a complex network of invisible tunnels which spiral endlessly, threatening to fold inwards on themselves. lateral movement is impossible because you take control of a rover, which forces the player to commit to wise decisions, and the player only has a select number of tools to aid them in mining the alien energy present in the crystals: distance-based coordinates, a refracting laser, a limited number of markers, and a limited number of quantum jumps.

so begins the process of orienting oneself and efficiently mapping out the twists and turns of each particular cavern. extracting even one energy core imposes a movement-based time limit on the rover as the crystal begins to destabilize, which incentivizes the player to have a rough outline of the crystal’s inner network before beginning the excavation process. energy cores which seem directly ahead of the player are likely blocked by some invisible wall or tunnel, forcing the intrepid rover to not simply bypass it, but to go under and over and around and then some – each detour is the full nine yards. markers allow for the player to either carefully breadcrumb their way around dizzying and dazzling labyrinths, or to lob shots and test the depths of the tunnels. refracting lasers can be used with surgical precision to reach tucked away energy cores as they perpetually ricochet off walls (a really commendable system given the its smooth implementation), and quantum jumps aid in closing gaps that the rover would struggle with otherwise. each tool is perfectly considered and complementary in ways that reveal themselves to the player with each hour invested, and as such intraquartz becomes a game of mastery. the most coveted score for each level involves extracting each energy core without moving the rover, save for quantum jumps – an arduous task for a beginner, but a worthy challenge for the experienced. planning extensively to reach this offers satisfaction like nothing else can provide.

it's really admirable that the procedural generation utilized for the game’s energy cores ensures that this is not a game about strict puzzle solving, but rather a game about adaptive problem solving. there’s an argument to be made that once your brain is attuned to this game’s language it can sometimes feel a bit too much like second nature, but right up until that point it’s one of the most exhilarating games of 2022. at times soothing in its diligent pace, at times heartpounding when facing all-but-certain destabilization, and always an audiovisual tour de force about the worlds in grains of sand.

felt a pleasant sense of mirth when i saw the name of the final level. so excited for ilzard’s third outing!

A very unique 3D maze where you have to harvest energy from inside translucent crystalline constructs. There's really not another game out there like this, and as such may be hard to get into. If you take the time to understand it's quirks though, it quickly becomes a challenging and enjoyable experience. Definitely worth a try!

i continue to want an informational review button steam please give one to me

anyway, DON'T BUY THIS YET IF YOU HAVE AN AMD GFX CARD COS IT AIN'T GONNA RENDER PROPERLY. the dev is aware of this and is gonna work on fixing it up but it cant really be said how long its going to take. just keep it on your wishlist and follow it for the time being.

A navigation puzzle game where you have to traverse a crystal environment. You're free to traverse on your tracks until the activation of one objective, then it's limited spacial movement as you try to find the rest. Use pin-point lasers and beacons to find obfuscated paths to further objectives. Quantum jump to particular points when you can. It's unique, challenging, and perfect for the "want something (very) different" audience.

I highly recommend the ilzard Bundle on top of this standalone title - includes Nix Umbra. Both games are vastly different and original; completely devoid of hand holding and letting you discover your own approach to a non-apparent solution.

Trilogy?

Developer ilzard's first game, NIX UMBRA, was a nightmarish doom metal-inspired opus that reveled in a gothic, glim, and claustrophobic atmosphere.

Its follow up, INTRAQUARTZ, is a 180-degree turn away from those sensibilities, playing more like a love letter to the audacious pioneering work of experimental '90s electronica... a time when artists like Autechre, B12, and Aphex Twin used analogue gear that had already been around for decades to conjure vast, alien soundscapes that wormed their way into your head with dreamy synth pads. Similarly, INTRAQUARTZ takes gameplay concepts that may initially seem familiar, but presents them in ways that will undoubtedly keep you feeling dazzlingly disoriented throughout.

Don't let the game's minimalistic design fool you, there's a lot more going on than meets the eye here. What appears to be a relatively straight shot to harvest the next energy point is in fact a tangled, translucent web that will require you to constantly recalibrate your (perceived) path to victory. The only way to know what is or isn't a dead end is to shoot out floating markers that, piece by piece, aid in establishing some semblance of spatial awareness.

If any of this sounds like it might be up your alley, don't even hesitate to give INTRAQUARTZ a shot. Just like a refracted beam of light from its microscopic rover, it's been endlessly bouncing around in my head from the first moment I booted it up. Support art that takes risks!

very cool puzzler. super disorienting to try and get around abstract levels on invisible surfaces with just two simple tools to get your bearings. highly recommended if you enjoy experimental games. it's a pretty unique experience - the only comparison I could make is to Nix Umbra, which is of course by the same dev. even then it's not that similar.

also looks gorgeous and has a nice soothing soundtrack. nice sense of polish for what is a relatively small and contained experience. well worth the small asking price.

A lovely maze/laser puzzle game! This game is likely unlike much else you've played, as this is a maze game set within a maze you can't directly see, and that so far as I can tell is made up of tunnels that you can crawl along all the sides of, ceilings included.

To navigate these tunnels you must make use of your markers to try to breadcrumb trail your way through the mindbending, near invisible crystalline tunnels, as well as your lasers to make out where walls and tunnel openings are. However, if you're patient, you can almost treat the game as a laser puzzle, reflecting your lasers off the crystalline walls till they align with your objectives: alien energies for extraction. Initially that's how I approached the game, but later crystals seem to get more complex, and while the laser reflection option remains, it becomes more evident why this is described as a maze puzzler.

Now you may also be wondering, okay, outside of maze navigation, how is this a puzzle? There's where the real fun kicks in. After you extract the first bit of alien energy from a crystal, the structure begins to destabilize, and you have a set amount of "time", or more accurately, move distance, to find your way to the other alien energies in the crystal to extract them. This is why I said the laser reflection strategy can remain an option despite the mazes possibly getting more complex, as reflecting the lasers doesn't require as much movement.

However, there's another option to help here, and that's quantum jumping, which is essentially teleportation and doesn't count against your move distance/time. The trick to quantum jumping, though, is that you have a set number of jumps you can make, and there's no way (so far as I've seen) to replenish them. Also, unless you have a clear sense of where & which way you'll find yourself after jumping, i.e. closer to alien energy, or at a better angle to align your lasers with the alien energy to extract it, it can prove disorienting and work against you.

Nevertheless, it's super fun to quantum jump about, even when you get disoriented, and as you get your bearings in the game, the alien energy extraction sequence feels absolutely wicked. The process of piloting the rover around the right edge of a crystal tunnel to bounce the lasers off another tunnel to juuust align with a distant yet visible alien energy and then extract it is bizarrely satisfying.

beware, for if you gaze too long into the crystal, the crystal also gazes into you.