The Entropy Centre – Review
The Entropy Centre is the debut title from the UK-based studio Stubby Games, whose developers appear to be ridiculously talented. That’s why I think this game deserves special attention. They’ve made an unforgettable game by combining ingenious puzzle design, stunning visuals, and a compelling narrative. The less you know going in, the better, so this review will be short and contain no spoilers. As such, arm yourself with your trusty sidekick (a gun that can slow down or speed up time) and get to work fixing the world.
If you haven’t seen the game’s release trailer yet, I hope you’ve been able to avoid spoilers. Until two days before the review embargo, I had never heard of the title. A short gameplay trailer that revealed no plot details left me thinking, “Neat, this looks cool.” Similar to a Portal in time” Because I didn’t know anything going in, your explanation of where, why, and how you’re working absolutely floored me. To give you a sense of what this game is about, I’ll sum it up like this: “Something bad is happening, and you have the power to rewind time.” You’ll be putting together entropic energy through puzzle solving, which you’ll use to stop the bad thing from happening.
The mechanics of puzzles can be manipulated in a wide variety of ways, and there can be a surprising number of acts in a single puzzle. Using your AI-powered gun Astra to rewind objects through time can be a terrifying experience on your way to each puzzle room. Most of these items are cubes, like in Portal, which you’ll move around to solve puzzles. You can find regular blocks, blocks that cause you to jump high into the air, bridge blocks that allow you to walk across what was once empty space, and many more. Very little actual “combat” occurs in the game, and even when more perilous areas did appear, I never found them to be a hindrance. They effectively raised the stakes in the beginning. You’ll be facing the game’s versions of enemies so frequently toward the end that it may feel like overkill. Let’s skip over the game’s story and mechanics and instead talk about how I felt while playing, the game’s presentation, and the music.
I was deeply affected by The Entropy Centre. Good writing, an interesting story, and a fantastic score all play a role in this. You, your AI gun, and a computer system voice that warns you of impending danger are the only voiced characters in the game. There is a lot of talking, and while it starts off feeling cutesy and light, the game’s powerful buildup to its conclusion almost leaves me speechless by the end. At the risk of coming off as arrogant, I’d say it took me around 10 hours to beat, and I was pretty darn good at quickly figuring out solutions to even the trickiest puzzles. Although I had to make a mad dash for the embargo, that’s not how the game should be played. This game appears difficult at first glance, so you should take your time if you can and give your brain a break when you need to. You leave, think about it for a while, come back, and solve a challenging puzzle on your first try because you’ve learned your lesson.
There is a fantastic equilibrium between easy and difficult puzzle rooms. Each of the game’s acts features its own unique set of puzzle rooms. Traveling to and from these puzzle rooms can be just as time-consuming and challenging as solving the puzzles within them. Numerous spots in this far-flung, desolate, and decaying playground are aesthetically pleasing. Although The Entropy Centre’s visuals aren’t particularly impressive, they do the job, and the game generally runs smoothly at a consistent framerate (barring a few particularly dense areas of volumetric fog).
It’s even more impressive because of the physics of destruction on display. Everything keeps falling apart, and you have to use your gun to put it back together in real time. As I experimented, I discovered that the game broke in slightly different ways depending on when I paused or resumed my rewind ability, so I found myself repeatedly breaking, fixing, and re-breaking the same areas. In the middle of the game, when you’re near a lot of water, the haze effect washes everything out and makes some of the environment’s textures look oddly pixelated in comparison to others. For at least two acts, the brightness seemed to have been cranked all the way up to 100.
It’s the game’s soundtrack that really sets it apart, though. Excellent effects on weaponry and robots are matched by realistic-sounding environmental noises and precise positional audio. The bulk of the game’s text is text logs located on computer terminals, though there is some dialogue between your character and an AI gun. These are essential for figuring out what went wrong and why you’re starting the game seemingly alone. That email made me feel like I was reading a suspenseful mystery novel, and it was written in business language.
Bug-wise I only encountered a handful, and most of them involved getting stuck in the environment or the extremely rare occurrence of my character clipping into an object and dying instantly when time was reversed. As far as I can tell, the game can be played entirely offline, so there shouldn’t be any server issues upon release.
This game is for you if you enjoy puzzle games with compelling narratives, intricate puzzles, stunning visuals, and stirring music. The Entropy Centre’s ingenuity caught me off guard, and the less you know about it before you go, the better your experience will be.
