In the grim darkness of the… indeterminate future, there are
only clones. I apologize for skipping Friday, but everyone here at NinjaBee was
celebrating All Hallows’ Eve and we neglected the blog. In honor of our
recently passed holiday, I bring you The Swapper.
While not exactly what most would consider a horror game, The Swapper brings a kind of solemn existential terror that seems
more at home with Danish cinema than Romero guts. The Swapper is a grim exploration of identity masquerading as a
claymation puzzle game. As the game wears on, a sinister mystery unfolds on the
oddly designed space station Theseus. There is a lot to talk about when
approaching The Swapper.
The visuals are beautiful, arresting, and made of clay. The
play of light and darkness, the somber mood, the forlorn architecture, and the
hauntingly minimal soundtrack are designed to engender a very specific mood. It
evokes an air of the unknown, the hopelessly alien. There are few familiar
touchstones to rely on, instead requiring the player to immerse themselves
completely within the game’s world. The only thing that pulled me out of the
game was the unusual proportions and motion of the player character. It doesn’t
really work for me. But given the
exceptional level of character and polish to be found elsewhere, I gave it a
pass.
Players begin the game by watching a helpless space-suit
clad individual being fired from an escape pod onto the surface of a barren
celestial body. The stranded space-farer quickly comes into the possession of the
eponymous Swapper device and returns to the Theseus. Given no exposition and an
in media res introduction, the player is compelled only by curiosity and
determination to unravel the mystery surrounding the seemingly derelict
station. The story takes on a decidedly sinister character as it progresses,
despite a lack of any actual evil to resist. The antagonists, if you can call
them that, are a case of Lovecraftian unknowable terror from the darkness of
space. They are so vastly different and removed from our frame of reference
that they simply do not acknowledge us rather than actively seek to do humanity
harm. There is also a decided element of “man is the real monster”. I won’t get
into spoilers, but I certainly became uncomfortable with my callousness as the
game wore on.
As to the actual gameplay, most of the game is accomplished
by creating and swapping to various clones in order to gain access to some sort
of energy core to power access gates so as to continue. Difficulty ramps up
considerably, adding elements like limited numbers of clones, gravitational
inequality, disallowed actions, and other complications. I’m not sure why the
Theseus was designed in such a manner, but whoever approved the floor-plan
should probably have been shot. It is a usability disaster. I hand-wave it as
being a concession to game design; but seriously, worst architect ever.
There are wrinkles in the game. Many of the mechanics of
swapping are poorly or not explained at all, and there are subtleties I did not
discover until after banging my head against a puzzle for half an hour. To save
everyone at home a headache, I’ll offer a handy tip. Time slows down when you
are aiming with the right mouse button. That would have saved me a lot of early
effort. There were exactly two puzzles that I felt were excessively
finicky/exact. They pulled me out of the moment pretty badly because I
understood how to accomplish what the game wanted me to do, but my aim being
off by a fraction of an inch on one shot required me to redo two minutes of
setup. The disruption to the flow of the game was glaring.
The game ends in a novel fashion for this age of instant
gratification and “best endings”. I will avoid spoilers again, but… man. There
really isn’t a good way to end this. Despite the ending being lose/lose, it was
a deeply satisfying narrative that ended on a high note. A depressing high
note, but high nonetheless. If you are having a bad day, I wouldn’t recommend The Swapper. But if you are resilient to
despair in the darkness of the void, give this game a go. It is a puzzle
experience not to be missed. Not only is it refreshingly new and brain-burning,
it is a bit of claymation nihilism that will leave you with a poignant
afternoon of thoughtful reflection.
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