Every now and then you get something that eschews the normal rules of traditional gameplay. A game that doesn’t really care how you decide to operate within its world, instead opting to present you with a room of doors, and it’s entirely up to you which one you open.

Hohokum represents this perfectly. Its hands-off approach to gameplay means you can take your time to search through each level, probing your surroundings for the tiny details of flair that give the game a sense of innocence and charm. Everything you see is doused in a beautifully vibrant aesthetic, and the world itself is populated by wondrous creatures that look like they’ve been ripped straight from your wildest dreams. Strange towers with eyes, U-shaped bees, and large-headed people playing violins are just some of the sights that can be found within the game’s picturesque dream world. There’s always the feeling that for every elephant creature or hat-making villager you find, you still have more to see, and there’s just no way of knowing what creation will appear next.

Perhaps the weirdest creature of them all is you. Your involvement with the world comes in the form of a giant snake-like creature with one singular beady eye placed at the head of its long, twisting body.  You are, for lack of a better word, a magical flying Cyclops. And as a magical flying Cyclops, you have the freedom to weave through the world, exploring its features and completing tasks along the way. The creature controls as you would imagine, with the thumbstick used to control the direction of the head and the body propelling it forward. Using the Square button slows you down for precision movement; whilst holding X lets you build up momentum to travel much faster across the landscape. Neither function is relevant to any of the game’s tasks, but they go a long way towards helping you experience the world at your own pace. Slowing the speed down can be especially helpful if you’re trying to examine some of the finer details of the world, as the creature is in a constant state of momentum, which can make it hard to get a good look at the environment and its inhabitants.

As for what the goal of the game is, well that’s somewhat debatable. There’s a large emphasis on exploration within Hohokum which is made clear from the lack of guidance it gives you. When the game starts, you’re shown a delightful display of several creatures that fly alongside you as they playfully weave across your screen. Eventually you reach a middle point in the world, and the creatures disperse in all directions leaving you all alone in this unknown dreamscape. From what I can gather, this is the start of some crazy inter-dimensional game of hide and seek, but the game never really gives you any explanation or prompts about what is happening, instead leaving you to your own devices in the hope that you’ll figure it out in the end.

At one point, I entered a world full of hollowed logs that seemed to go on forever. Each log was just like the last, and despite being able to go through them, there didn’t seem to be any real interaction to be had with these scattered pieces of timber. And so I searched, across the edges, and throughout the middle of this forest of logs, at first quizzically and then desperately, struggling for a revelation as to what it was this zone actually wanted me to do, only to go away empty handed and frustrated. And to this day I still have no idea what the goal of this room was, or just what I had missed so blatantly.  Unfortunately this issue persists throughout several of the worlds, and what at first feels like a whimsical canvas to explore soon turns into a hastily wrapped tussle as you desperately scan the horizon for a hint or a clue as to what the game actually wants from you.

These worlds are what Hohokum is made up of, and each one seems to serve as its own separate puzzle. In one instance I entered, I was greeted with a trio of elephant men wearing water tanks. As I sailed past them, they boarded my snake body and began to collect globs of honey that was floating across the skyline. Below them rested a giant mechanical labyrinth of pipes and tanks, and the goal of this world was to gather up enough of this honey to fill the main tank, which in turn gave me access to climb inside the machine and reach a blocked off area. After accomplishing my task, a creature like me – one of the several we saw at the start of the game – emerges, and I’m treated to a mini cutscene of strange creatures doing strange things. This world is seemingly complete, though I’d never know for sure.

The portals are an intertwined series of pathways; each one offering access to another land with each one representing its own distinctive motif. On one occasion I found myself stumbling across a water park filled to the brim with partygoers. There was excitement and life as far as you could fly, and the entire zone was alive with activity. That is, until I travelled below the platforms and festivities. Passing through a seemingly unimportant gap in the rocky underside of the structure caused the world to pulsate, and all of a sudden things took a strange turn. The party was over, and the once active water slides lay in ruins.  The platforms that were so alive moments ago had now been reclaimed by nature, and the overall tone had instantly shifted to something more serene. It’s these moments, of sheer intrigue, that carry Hohokum above the leagues of a simple puzzle game. In the blink of an eye, the simple act of passing between two rocks revealed a new world, and as far as I’ve seen this mechanic is unique to this specific zone. And there’s plenty of other seemingly unobvious triggers scattered across the game that offer these charming little nuggets for you to experience, and it’s fair to say that this is the true heart and soul of the game.

To say that Hohokum is a puzzle game would be doing it a disservice. While it is true that there are goals to achieve, these are not strictly the main aim of the game. Instead, you’re given this colourful playground full of imaginative creatures and interactions, and you’re simply told to go and play. However, when the time comes to progress through the game, some of the puzzles present themselves in the most obscure ways imaginable, often leaving you flying around in circles wondering just what the game is trying to tell you. Those of you who like a clear cut challenge should probably avoid this title, but if exploration and colourful dream-creatures are your thing then I would strongly recommend diving in.

Overall Rating: ★★★★☆ 

What does this score mean?

This review is based on experiences from the PS4 version of the game.

© 2014, The Indie Mine. All rights reserved.

The science fiction genre has always been a source for creativity to flourish. Dangling just beyond our reach, the idea of bizarre space anomalies and strange new life forms hangs within the realms of the great void of space, and it’s through this mysterious veil that we cast our focus. For every story involving verdant new worlds or highly civilized lifeforms, there will in turn be the tales of the infinite emptiness of space and the malignant creatures that want nothing more than to invade your body.

The Swapper sits firmly on the latter of the two options mentioned above, with its emphasis on maintaining an aura of confusion and unease acting as a backdrop for the puzzling elements that drive the gameplay. You play as a stranded survivor on the Theseus, a once functional spacecraft that has since fallen into disrepair. With the crew unexplainably missing, you’re expected to discover just what has happened whilst looking for a way off the ship.

The game is heavily focused on the mechanics of the ‘Swapper’, a peculiar device gained near the start of the game that allows the user to create clones of themselves at both short and long range distances. What’s more, they are then able to swap their own consciousness between the active clones, so long as they have a clear line of sight to them. You can only have a maximum of five instances of yourself active at any given moment, including your original self, and many of the game’s puzzles derive from this restriction, forcing you to think logically about where you place your clones when trying to complete each obstacle.

To complicate matters, the game slowly introduces several other obstacles to restrict progress even further, by way of coloured lights. The blue lights allow you to fire your swapping beam through them but restrict any chance of spawning a clone inside the field of light. The red beam has the opposite effect where clones can be spawned, but no swapping beam can pass this field. While it may seem odd that a superior piece of technology that’s able to produce matter out of nothing can’t penetrate the altered hue of a beam of light, the mechanics behind this are sound. Each puzzle requires you to approach the situation of what you can and can’t do with a logical mindset, and whilst the way at first may seem unclear, stopping and analysing the options that are available to you will eventually yield the right answer.

One such puzzle greeted me with a room full of vibrant colours. A mixture of blues and reds cast liberally against a large portion of the chamber, with a few seemingly meaningless pockets of unlit space to fill in the rest of the area. A large chasm spanned the gap between me and the shiny token I had to acquire, and any attempts made to clear the gap by jumping were met with a swift and undignified death. After a few minutes of repeated dying and head scratching, the way became clear. In order for me to pass the challenge I had to create several clones inside the empty spaces and carefully manoeuvre them in sync as they traversed the areas I could not reach, triggering the necessary pressure plates scattered around and deactivating the lights that blocked me from swapping over the gap. There’s an odd sense of satisfaction that comes with completing a puzzle room, and it comes as a stark contrast against the otherwise bleak atmosphere of the derelict spacecraft.

Along with the puzzle-driven progression, the game features a large portion of the derelict ship for you to explore. Similar to that of a Metroidvania, the world is spread across a flat 2D canvas, and you’re expected to navigate throughout in your search for the various puzzle rooms. Fortunately, backtracking through previous areas of the ship isn’t very difficult as there are plenty of teleportation devices that allow you to fast travel between key points on the ship, helping you go back to any rooms you may have passed on previously.

By just focusing on the puzzles, you’re likely to miss out of the underlying story that surrounds the game, which is a shame as there’s a narrative hiding under the surface that makes for interesting reading. By exploring the expansive halls of the ship, the tone of the game becomes much darker than it first seems. There’s an eerie presence that lingers throughout, and as you clear more of the game’s puzzles, it becomes clear that the story is as morbid as the gloomy visuals of the game lead you to believe, with topics of ethical practises sitting at the forefront of the narrative.

Since The Swapper started life as a PC title, it was always going to be a challenge to see just how a controller could handle the dual input of movement and aiming. Since your cursor is always relevant to your player’s character, it was perfectly suited to that of a keyboard and mouse. Movements that required quick reactions we’re easily achievable with the freedom afforded to the PC control scheme. On the PS4, the controls are tied to the twin thumbsticks, with the clone creation and swap ability tied to the trigger buttons accordingly. I never had any issues playing with the default settings, but for those who do the game features the option to let you adjust the sensitivity of your aiming reticule, which should help those with issues acclimating to the controller layout.

As far as console ports go, The Swapper is a solid entry to the PS4’s indie catalogue. The game remains true to the PC version, excelling in deliverance of a compelling and atmospheric sci-fi horror story. The puzzles are well paced and engaging yet rarely stray past a high level of difficulty, meaning you’re unlikely to be stuck on the same puzzle for days on end. Top that off with an intuitive set of controls well suited for the console and it’s easy to see why The Swapper got ported to begin with. Those of you who’ve already completed the game might not have much reason to play through again, but for newcomers this is definitely one to pick up.

Overall Rating: ★★★★★ 

What does this score mean?

This game was reviewed using a copy provided by the developer for that purpose.

This review is based on experiences from the PS4 version of the game.

© 2014, The Indie Mine. All rights reserved.

Sanatana Mishra from Witch Beam Studios flew all the way from Australia to attend this year’s Eurogamer Expo, so naturally we couldn’t pass up the opportunity to talk about his current twin stick shooter Assault Android Cactus, as well as his experiences with publishing on the next wave of consoles.

For more information on Assault Android Cactus check out their official site here.

© 2013, The Indie Mine. All rights reserved.

The game will follow Paul Prospero, an occult detective with the ability to peer into the final moments of a murder victim’s life. After receiving a cryptic letter asking for help from a boy named Ethan Carter, Paul soon discovers there is more than meets the eye to this case, as Ethan has since gone missing and a string of murders is plaguing the community of Red Creek Valley.

Described as “a weird piece of horror fiction”, The Vanishing of Ethan Carter will focus is on “atmosphere, mood, and the essential humanity of our characters”. There will be no combat in the game, and the entire experience will take place from a first person perspective. The player must use both supernatural and normal detective techniques to solve the riddles surrounding Ethan’s disappearance.

Along with the new screenshots, the developers also launched a short prequel comic strip, providing a small insight into Paul’s past, as well as what may be waiting for him in Red Creek Valley. You can check out the comic here.

The Astronauts is comprised of 8 members, founded by the ex-owners of People Can Fly of Painkiller and Bulletstorm fame. More information on the game and the team behind can be found on their official site here.

The Vanishing of Ethan Carter is slated for release on PC, but as yet no release date has been announced. Next gen releases on PS4 and Xbox One are also being considered.

© 2013, The Indie Mine. All rights reserved.