First Look at Quantum Conundrum
I had the distinct pleasure yesterday of attending a small event for Square Enix here in New York. A handful of people gathered in a small confererence room at the Westin Times Square to check out a few demos. Among them was a delightful puzzle platformer called Quantum Conundrum.
Quantum Conundrum has gotten some attention for itself already, having been featured in publications like Game Informer. I knew the game came from the creative mind of Kim Swift, one of the co-creators of Portal so I was very excited to see what this demonstration would entail. The demo was conducted by Ms. Swift herself as well as the lead environmental artist Matt Salladay. They began by letting us know what the premise of the game is. It’s fairly simple: You’re a kid visiting your uncle, the brilliant Professor Quadrangle whose work with other dimensions has gotten him into a bit of a pickle.
The walkthrough was about 20 minutes and we watched quirky puzzle after quirky puzzle being expertly solved all with the help of several charming, in game features such as dimensional manipulation and an eager to please puppy-like wall robot named DOLLI who makes sure you have whatever you will need to solve the puzzle put before you. Apparently within the game there is also a helpful little creature -character named IKE (pictured above) that we unfortunately did not get to meet. Swift describes IKE as “this whole koala wombat situation.” Personally I can’t wait to interact with that.
I am kind of ridiculously excited for this game. It has all the cleverness of Portal with an added adorable factor and a great sense of humor. The environments are rich and detailed and feel a bit like a Saturday morning cartoon. It was impossible not to have a giant grin on my face while watching the whole thing and chatting with Swift and Salladay as they played through. I’ll be playing the heck out of this one as soon as can.
Quantum Conundrum will be released in early 2012 on XBox Live Arcade, Play Station Network and Steam