QUANTUM CONUNDRUM - Like Portal But With More Science

There were a very large amount of cool games shown at this years PAX but by far one of the front runners for a coolest game award had to be 'Quantum Conundrum' a first person puzzle game created by the co-creator of Portal, Kim Swift. It is nice to see that Kim Swift is not a one trick pony who spawns replicas of a number one franchise just to earn money (George Lucas I'm looking at you). No, instead she has made a game that, albeit is similar to Portal in a few respects, is actually pretty unique in the current market that is currently filled with Call of Duty clones and FIFA. So if you are not shooting portals into the world of this game what are you doing? How about completing puzzles by travelling through alternate dimensions. Now any mention of Alternate Dimensions sends shivers down my spine. The concept can be done brilliantly (See UK version of Red Dwarf) or could be done horrendously (Donnie Darko 2 springs to mind) and it seems that for 'Quantum Conundrum' the physics behind it work pretty freaking well. You play as a young child left with your crazy eccentric scientific uncle who has just completed a device called the 'Inter Dimensional Shift Device' that allows you to shift between five different planes of reality. When this crazy uncle of your goes missing you naturally grab the device and go searching for in within the confines of a huge mansion. As I said earlier there are 5 different realities, however the people behind the game are keeping somewhat quite, only releasing these images which show off only three of the five. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i3FKy7sxi9I So we have Fluffy, Slow Motion and Anti Gravity so far. At first the game could seem to be aimed at a younger audience than that of Portal with its cartoony style of gameplay however some of the puzzles look able to flummox even the most creative of minds. From this small sample alone I guess that this game is going to be huge...possibly bigger than Portal itself. Quantum Conundrum will be released on XBLA, PS Network and Steam in the early months of 2012.