In the world of Entropy, there’s not much in the way of hand-holding when it comes to figuring out what is supposed to be done and how it’s supposed to be accomplished. Because the story begins with the limited explanation that something ‘strange’ happened, it’s no surprise that the character’s identity, purpose, and abilities are also kept a mystery. The first-person view helps further that mystery by obscuring the view of what sort of entity the player is. I don’t always enjoy games that leave the player to figure out what the hell’s going on, but the dark and mysterious atmosphere made it seem like a good fit in this instance. A shining amoeba-like creature casually draws the player in the direction they must go, but the path is typically blocked. By unlocking the opening to the next area, the game fairly literally leads the player further down the rabbit hole as he/she drops down a shaft to continue. It’s enough to make one feel claustrophobic and there’s no way to tell whether the player is ultimately making their way into or out of the unknown structure.

The puzzles get tougher as you head further down the rabbit hole

In order to gain access to the next area, the solution generally involves powering up energy conduits that line the walls. How this is accomplished is through orbs found throughout the levels. These orbs might be made of water, fire, and other basic elements. The non-lethal variety can be moved by making contact with them. The deadly ones can be moved through use of a gravity bubble gun that pulls all orbs within its reach to the center of the field. Sometimes the conduits are powered up by piling orbs onto a massive scale that measures weight, pH levels, or temperature. In some instances, the player simply has to figure out a way to draw electricity from an active conduit towards one that’s inactive. The most help players will typically get is an occasional image projected onto the walls that gives a subtle hint about which direction to go or if there’s a nearby danger. It’s refreshing to see a game not give away the most basic of  solutions. It’s through experimentation that lessons are learned about the effects when the elemental orbs come into contact with one another. For example, douse a fire orb with enough water orbs and it turns to stone. Where Portal is generally considered a physics sandbox, Entropy combines physics with a dose of chemistry.

Strong enough for a man…

While discovery of both purpose and means is arguably the strongest facet of Entropy, the graphical prowess is also worth a mention. While I’m not a fan of throwing down the “for an XBLIG” caveat, Entropy really does look great for an XBLIG title. While the engine can chug a bit now and then, the dark environments contrast well with the vibrant, elemental orbs with all of it looking sharp. It’s a true rarity to see an Xbox indie studio successfully pull off a great-looking 3D environment, so kudos to Autotivity.

While Entropy does a decent job of introducing new gameplay twists every once in awhile, it’s not the kind of game that’s going to be fun for long play sessions. Many of the puzzles require precision in how you direct the orbs around hazards as well as some timing in instances where you’re suspending them over pits or open space. That level of exactness can wear on the player over time. As with a number of the puzzle games we’ve reviewed, Entropy is best enjoyed in small doses. Thankfully it’s also the kind of game that’s easy to come back to without having to get reacclimated. In fact, I took almost a month off from playing the game and had zero issues jumping right back in.

Entropy is another worthy entry in the lineup of XBLIG puzzle titles. While comparisons to Portal are inescapable, fans of that series are likely to enjoy the physics and chemistry-based fun that’s to be had. Although the game lacks the humor and character of its mainstream brother, the shrouded atmosphere is certainly worthy of a look. The puzzles themselves run the gamut from easy to pretty difficult, and only once or twice did I find myself getting really frustrated. The ever present ability to rewind time is a tool that will get a lot of use and certainly helps keep that irritation level down. Players can even skip levels if they want to. It’s inclusions like these that give the game a bit of polish, elevating it above many of its peers on the XBLIG service. Entropy is currently available in the Xbox Marketplace for 80 MSP ($1).

Overall Rating: ★★★★☆ 

Review on theXBLIG.com

Review on Indie Gamer Chick

Review on Clearance Bin Review

© 2012 – 2013, The Indie Mine. All rights reserved.

Our parade of interviews with Indie Games Uprising developers continues. In this installment we talk with Alex from Autotivity Entertainment. Autotivity has developed Entropy, a game sure to entertain fans of physics-based puzzle games. Check out the interview below for information on Entropy and development advice direct from Aristotle.

Alex you are here representing Autotivity, the developers behind the XBLIG game Entropy. Can you tell us a bit about your studio in terms of how you got started and where you are now? Your staff more than doubled in size during development.

Autotivity is a name we picked because DBP demanded a team name so we have no glorious history to share tales on. In the beginning there were two of us (programmers both), but later on we were joined by five very motivated people who helped us finish Entropy for the Uprising (turned out you actually need artists for proper game graphics, having 3d graphics and physics programmers alone is not sufficient.)

You were accepted into Dream.Build.Play, and now you’ve been asked to participate in the Indie Games Uprising. What’s been the reaction from the staff? Is everyone stressed out by meeting deadlines, or is everyone really excited?

My co-workers and I had a lot of pressure in the last weeks as this is not the only project we’re involved with and even though rapidly approaching deadlines are good for actually finishing stuff, the pressure on our real-life has been high. I don’t think there will be much excitement until we have the game released.

Let’s dig into discussing Entropy. I’m a big fan of physics-based puzzle games and I know there are thousands, maybe millions, of other people out there who feel the same. Can you tell us what Entropy is all about?

It’s about physical interactions between different kinds of matter, set within a mystery world with lots of hidden stuff to discover. Roughly speaking, the world we built for the XBLIG community is a cave garden that happens to be populated by lava, acid, heavy stone balls, electric conductors – and you have to combine all these components to get forward. The interesting part is that most puzzles must be solved indirectly (obviously, all this stuff is really dangerous!). Be careful, you’re not alone down there!In one of the first levels, our first-person player (who initially doesn’t know who he is) gets a “weapon” that produces gravity bubbles, which stay alive for a while and push all movable matter within their range towards their center. The later levels are based on tilting entire chambers.

There’s some 3D platforming involved as well.

It’s really difficult to explain how this all comes together, you should check out our release trailer (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V8CMSrfBBaU) to get a feeling for what to expect.

The elements factor heavily into Entropy‘s puzzles

What games, if any, inspired Entropy?

Portal. In the beginning we were scared about being a fake Portal ripoff because everybody whom we talked to about the game concept would mention the ‘P’ word somewhere. Now that the game is finished we can safely say that Entropy is totally, absolutely different than Portal – still Portal‘s puzzle design somehow inspired the game and even though you don’t carry a gun in Entropy the gravity device you use bears some very vague resemblance to the Portal Gun.

Rumors are there is even cake in the game.

(Braid, even though it too has the time shift feature, was not an inspiration, none of us had played it.)

What games in general have inspired you to become a developer?

On this question I can only speak for myself. I don’t think computer games ever inspired me to become a software developer (there’s so much out there that is more or at least as fascinating than games), but they inspired me to delve into 3D graphics programming. Noteworthy titles include Half Life 2 and, later, Crysis.

What do you consider your favorite part or element of Entropy? Is there anything that’s not going to make the cut that you wish would?

In Entropy you can always go back in time. Time shift is easily accessible on the left trigger so it integrates smoothly into the gameplay.

I really LOVE this feature. It’s so fun to be able to burn half the scene (for fun … or by accident) and to watch it play back in real-time.

Earlier you mentioned the need to bring in artists to help on the project. What’s been the most difficult part of the game development process for you and your team?

Organizing the whole thing. Entropy is a medium-sized software project running on two platforms doing non-trivial stuff and being developed on by multiple developers. This alone is a nightmare to manage. Add the need to communicate with artists and to schedule their work, too, to the pot and it gets even worse.

I think the most difficult aspect on game development is that you not only need to get a software project done, but you also need to do well on non-quantifyable scales such as artistic aspects or plain “fun”.

This way to physics-based fun

What do you feel is the best part about being an indie developer?

It’s difficult for me to respond to this – we’re Indie developers by accident and we don’t need to earn our living with it. In fact we don’t need money at all (even though we’d be glad to get our development costs back).

So in our case, we were just writing the game we would like to play ourselves, with no pressure and full freedom to do what we had in mind.

I doubt the experience remains as pleasant as soon as you need to get something in return.

Are there any aspirations to do this kind of development full-time?

No to Indie development as a fulltime job. But I can definitely imagine it as a hobby.

What advice would you give to other developers out there just starting out?

I’ll go with Aristotle and say that to begin  is more important than everything else. You’ll probably do 100 of the 10000 things you have in your mind to achieve in your life – or zero (as in zero) if you don’t start. So go ahead and start doing something. Sticking to it is the next obstacle, but to start comes first.

Before we go, let’s get back to Entropy for just a moment.  Can you tell our readers what kind of experience they can expect playing your game, and why they should give it a try?

You will be exploring a very fascinating and beautiful 3D world in which there is lots to discover. You will be solving puzzles that are not overly difficult but totally different to all 3D puzzlers you’ve seen before. Did I mention you can play with fire in the game?

Additional coverage of Entropy:

Prelude to the Uprising: Entropy on theXBLIG.com

© 2012 – 2013, The Indie Mine. All rights reserved.