The Swapper

You can immediately tell that the swapper was made by people with a passion and a story they wanted to tell. Everything from the cleverly designed puzzles, to the haunting music, to the lovingly crafted "claymation" environments, all of this screams of a game made by very dedicated people who have talent and drive. But all the well-meaning passion in the world doesn't mean squat if it doesn't play decently or have any meat to it.

Fortunately, The Swapper is well designed enough, with just enough meat on its bones, to justify the price.

STORY:

The story of the Swapper is deliberately vague at first. You are a space-suited individual on a deserted, abandoned space station. Who are you? How did you get there? What are you doing? Where did everyone go? Finding the answers to those questions is the rewards you get for solving the puzzles, so I am not going to spoil it here. Needless to say that the story is quite complex, involving metaphysics, talking rocks, what it means to have "a soul" and what makes up a person's identity. The Swapper has something to say, and it's something quite interesting. It's a shame, then, that the Swapper doesn't particularly tell its story very well. Although grammatically perfect, the dialogue seems a bit stilted and oddly structured, reflecting the fact that the developer's first language wasn't English. Most of the story is told through log entries - most of which are very easy to find, but some of which are devilishly hard. There are some audio segments that inform you of the plot, but they are often deliberately vague - the game trusts that if you are smart enough to solve the puzzles, you're smart enough to piece the plot together.

And it's a plot worth piecing together, with twists and turns. It isn't a character-drive plot - you won't find yourself shedding many tears over "anonymous-space-suit-person" and their journey, but the story will make you think, especially if you are a fan of philosophy or, if you're like me, you spend hours thinking "just what does define my identity? What is consciousness? Do I really have free will?"

GAMEPLAY:

The game play of "The Swapper" revolves around the device aptly named the Swapper device. You very quickly find it only a few minutes into the game, and it is your only device which you must use to solve all puzzles. Good thing then that the device is a fun (and disturbing one) to use. Using the device, your character can instantly summon up to 4 perfect clones, complete with a swapper devices as well. The clones mimic your actions perfectly, regardless of where you place them. Move forward and all your clones will move forward. Jump, and all your clones will jump at the same time The swapper device also allows you to "beam" your consciousness into any clone as long as you have direct line of sight to it and nothing bars your way. Clones can die without any penalty (and sometimes to move forward, it is necessary to cause a clone to plummet to their death), so long as your "consciousness" is not within them. There are many moments where you are required to put yourself in peril, only to at the last second swap bodies, letting the original body die. It can be quite disturbing to actually witness this.

Clones can be used to stand on switches, to act as temporary "platforms" to reach higher areas, to take dangerous falls and to collect seemingly out of reach items. Most of the game revolves around the character cracking "security measures" (i.e puzzles) to find "Encryption Orbs" which will allow them to access new areas of the map.

Speaking of the map - the game takes place in a metroid-vania style space station, which is fairly large. Backtracking is involved, especially when you collect enough orbs to open previously inaccessible areas. Teleporters take some of the pain out of backtracking, but there are a few moments in which you are forced to trudge a good way to hit a switch and then travel all the way back to the start, which is no fun at all.

But the meat of the game - the reason people play the Swapper - is the puzzles, and I have to say that they are pleasingly challenging for the most part. The puzzles at the start may feel a little too easy, but it quickly ramps up the challenge to a fun level. The puzzles in the swapper will tax your mind a bit, but if you give it enough thought, you should be able to come to a solution within at least 15~20 minutes for even the hardest puzzles.

The real issue I have is the length - The Swapper only lasted 4.5 hours for me, and at least one of those hours was spent solving the last three puzzles. This game does not last long, and there is very little reason to go back to play it once you're done with the story.

AUDIO AND VISUAL:

The Swapper contains a few gorgeous, moving piano pieces that evoke feelings of wonder, despair and loneliness - but surprisingly they aren't used that commonly. Most of the game has a very ambient soundtrack that doesn't quite evoke any emotion aside from a vague sense of emptiness and "space-sounds".

Visually the game is very nice, for the most part - all the environments were crafted from wood, mud, rock and scrap in the real world - somehow they managed to get those assets into the game and use them. It has a distinct "claymation" style that doesn't detract from the atmosphere one bit. Environments have extremely tasteful, appropriate lighting, which evokes strong moods of loneliness. If I had to compare it to anything I've seen before, I'd say that the visual style reminded me of the 2009 film "Moon" and its lunar surface shots.

SUMMARY:

The Swapper lasts 4.5 hours, which isn't great, but about what you'd expect for an indie puzzle game. The mechanics are interesting, the puzzles are sound and were, for me, just the right difficulty to give my brain a reasonable work-out. The story is certain to stir up some interesting thoughts if you are philosophically inclined, or just happen to enjoy a hard-sci-fi tale. If any of that sound appealing, you should pick up The Swapper.