The Swapper

I don't even remember when I bought this, it was part of a humble bundle or something probably. I have no idea why I didn't play it but now that they've updated it for Steam Deck I thought I'd check it out. It hasn't aged a day, it may even feel a bit better than when I ♥♥♥♥♥♥ about with it for a bit way back when. Absolute aesthetic/art style TRIUMPH stapled to an excellent puzzle-platformer with a real sci-fi story. We didn't know how good we had it lads! The only complaint I have is that they do a bunch of no-clip secrets that have a lot of extra info about the story that I wish they would have just left in the game. If you haven't played through this yet, have a good pair of noise cancelling headphones and 3-4 hours free this is a terrific way to spend the time!

This is a short and thought-provoking puzzle game. I originally played this game on Xbox One years ago, and it's just as good as I remember it being. Its visually distinctive claymation-like graphics definitely make it stand out in its category. The story's subject matter on the philosophy of mind also kept me thinking about the nature of consciousness, and the nods to philosophers was a nice touch. For a 2013 game, it's still worth a purchase.

A decent puzzle game with an interesting concept and story. I enjoyed using the swapper device to solve puzzles and progress through the game. Fairly short - I completed it over two days, but it is definitely possible to do in one long run. It did leave me wanting more. I liked that it went into the philosophy behind using the device. I felt like some ideas weren't explored enough and I'm not sure how I feel about the ending(s), but I enjoyed the journey. I don't know if I am just forgetting, but I don't know if the game covered who I was playing as or how I got there (and why). Another character did refer to my character as "the girl" at the end, but that is about it. I expected more game mechanics would show up than the clone/swap functions, but those still made for some good puzzles. I will say that solving some of the puzzles was a little frustrating at times as all it is very easy to screw up (such as by messing up your positioning), resulting in you having to start all over due to the constraints. A couple of the puzzle towards the very end had me stumped, with one getting me to stop and come back the next day with a fresh mind. I think I may have solved another in an unintended way also. One quality of life issue is the absence of any manual save/chapter select. This is especially important for log entries, as some of them are tied to achievements. Some of these are missable - thankfully there are guides on here showing their content if you do want to read them. One you finish the game, your save is essentially gone (just plays the credits), so you also would miss out on content at the end of the game also. I backed up my save outside of the game to get around this. This game was in my Steam library for over a decade (one of the first games I ever bought), so I'm glad to tick it off.