Let's Try: Parallax
0I picked this game up through the Racial Justice Bundle from itch.io.
This game hurts my head in a good way. It's Portal, but stripped down to the basics and then made stylish as hell. It starts simple and ramps up the difficulty quick enough, which I shouldn't have been shocked about, and yet I always am with puzzle games.
In this video I only get through half of the levels, and I know things get more goofy in the later levels (which I will revisit in a later installment). One thing I will say is that this game has extremely specific solutions that are, upon reflection, much simpler than most people playing the game will do. You know this because when you beat a level, it shows you how many moves you _have_ to make vs how many moves you, the dummy, made. It is humbling, to say the least.
My one hangup is that you can fall off of the platforms an die. There's not real drawback to dying other than resetting you on the platform you were on before and counting them on the finish screen. They don't detract from your "Perfect" rating, so I don't know why they're there other than to shame you for your not watching where you step. To me there's not value other than a layer of shame, so why is it there?
I appreciate the small details: the fact that the music fades when in the "dark" universe, the fact that the lines on the grid used as the backdrop react as you move around, the small use of particle effects. It's a very tightly-built experience and way better than I would have expected from a little indie title. There are AAA games that aren't as polished as Parallax, and that should be praised.
If you like Portal, two-tone styles, and mind-bending puzzles, make sure you give Parallax a try. At 32 levels, I think it's the perfect length for what it's setting out to give the world.
Game info: https://majormcdoom.itch.io/parallax
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