Closure Review

 
Indie games are awesome, I'm gonna talk about one.

This is Closure. Closure is a puzzle platformer. On the surface it's really just a platformer, the entire puzzle aspect revolves around the core aspect of the game, and this is that the whole map doesn't always exist.

Let me explain, each level has a predefined map with specific elements at certain spots, some are manipulable, some are not. But here's the trick, these things only exist if you can see them. You've likely heard of a physics based platformer, well Closure is a light based platformer. Yes there might be a path from point A to point B, but unless you can see that path, it doesn't matter, stepping out of the light will cause you to fall away into the dark abyss, even if there would be a platform where you stepped. If you can't see it it's not effectively there.

The above picture is a fairly good representative of the visual style of the game. That four legged creature with a hole for a face is you. Why are you trying to solve all these puzzles? I have no idea, I guess for the same reason that people climb mountains; because they're there.

One thing that is interesting is that the.... thing you are changes during some of the levels. I haven't done them all yet but the first section causes you to put on a mining helmet, and this causes you to turn into an (albeit somewhat strangely proportioned) approximation of a human. Why does this happen? Fuck if I know.

The sound is minimal, but I think it suits the game well. In some sense you could argue that the game as a whole is minimal. The entire screen is very very rarely actually displaying an image, usually at least half of it is just black. There are small amounts of ambient noise, but mostly it's just sound effects of things happening.

There is no story. If that wasn't clear. Or at least there is no story yet. Perhaps at the end there will be something of an explanation, but I'm definitely not holding my breath waiting.

There is a sort of collection quest. Some levels in the game contain little glowing moths. Apparently there are a total of 30 of these, and grabbing all of them unlocks a bonus section. So that's kind cool.

My feelings on it? Very cool idea, somewhat flawed execution. The default controls for jump and interact are shit, but these can be rebound, so that's not too much of an issue. Issues that are not fixable are that the exact distance the character can jump seems to be not quite dependably standard. The number of pixels of darkness I can safely walk over versus the number that I can fall into and die is also difficult to parse. It's perpetually annoying to do 98% of a puzzle correctly screw up at the end and be forced to do it all again. Light orbs can be smashed for really no reason other than to force you to restart the puzzle, but I suppose this might actually be used as a puzzle element later. Your character can also be killed if a barrel or box falls onto you from pretty much any height. This I can't say could be a mechanic later. I want to like this for the cool things that can happen, but I'm not really sure I can because of all the very uncool things that do happen.

Gameplay: 4.5 out of 10
Story: N/A
Visuals: 6.5 out of 10
Audio: 5.5 out of 10
Overall: 5.5 light orbs out of 10