Thinking With Time Machine

no achievements, 2 hours

For a mod this is pretty good, I didn't go in expecting much but the short time I spent playing this game was satisfactory. The story is minimal, no narrator or companions to talk to like the base games but there are some interesting events that take place. The mechanics are very similar to the time based puzzles in The Talos Principle where you record yourself doing actions and then play them simultaneously as you do more actions to solve puzzles, the differences being you get to use Portals in those puzzles and you can start your recording any place on the map. The majority of the game I found easy, there was only one puzzle I was truly felt stuck on for quite a while and that was Chamber 8. The mod crashed a few times on me and I also got stuck in my duplicate on occasion but it's F2P so not really a problem.

Some spoiler filled screenshots (Steam) and the proof of completion.

Quantum Conundrum

13/25 (52%), 25 hours

This is a game I played a small amount of back when it was released in 2012 but lost interest and as it has been so long since I last played it I started from the beginning.

It's a physics based puzzle-platformer game where you play a young boy who goes to visit his scientist uncle, Professor Quadwrangle, only to discover he's got himself in a bit of a pickle. The puzzles vary in difficulty and complexity introducing new mechanics controlled by the "Interdimensional Shift Device (or IDS)" throughout the game. If the name of the device wasn't a clue you switch dimensions to find the solution to a room, there are four dimensions included with the game and they are Fluffy, Heavy, Slow Time and Anti-Gravity. A really nice touch was the aesthetic of the room changing to match the dimension you're currently in. Although there were times when I got stuck for the most part I could see what I had to do but just had difficulty implementing those actions, in particular the actual platforming part of the game and also the "surfing" mechanic which is actually quite fun once you've got the hang of it.

The similarities to Portal are fairly obvious, which is to be expected as Kim Swift the director of Quantum Conundrum was also the lead designer for Portal. Professor Quadwrangle serves a role very similar to that of GlaDOS, despite being stuck somewhere unknown he is able to talk to the young boy no matter where in the house he is, often giving tips and explaining how certain things work. They tried to make him more like GlaDOS with witty and sarcastic remarks but he doesn't come across in such a way, almost all the comments are very cold, neither funny or clever, just rude. I think it would have done well to have the character more relaxed and friendly. There is another character who appears often in levels, IKE (Interdimensional Kinetic Entity), a cute and friendly albeit somewhat shy creature that seems to be able to live in any dimension.

There is an incredible amount of books in this game, so many so I believe they deserve their own mention, especially as I spent quite a bit of time just rumaging through bookshelves to find new ones, I kind of wish I could actually read them. A list of all the books possible can be found here. As well as the books, you can also collect "noise makers", they weren't very difficult to find and they're very similar to radios in Portal, as their names imply both make noise.

There is two DLCs available for Quantum Conundrum, The Desmond Debacle and IKE-aramba!. I don't really think either add anything other than more puzzles to the game but I gave up on completing IKE-aramba! after repeatedly failing a horrible "surfing" level.

Doc Clock: The Toasted Sandwich of Time

9/12 (75%) 7.8 hours

Why take the easy route when you can go back in time and make things worse?

With an accident turning your beloved cat into a cactus (a catcus?) the obvious solution is to invent a time machine so you can go back in time to before the event happened and absolutely definitely not to just event a machine which will turn your catcus back into a cat. You end up going on a trip through snow and fire with a homicidal robotic companion strapped to your back, battling more homicidal robots that have conquered the world, to fix your time machine, save the day, collecting toasted sandwiches along the way.

The entirety of the game is based around finding objects to build and invent contraptions to get to the end of the level, starting out with simple bridges your projects will get more complex and fun the further you get throughout the game, you do this by simply sticking two or more objects together. The game is however very buggy and temperamental, a "snap" to connect feature wouldn't have gone amiss. Walking pace is also very slow and you're unable to jump, it very much is reliant on building vehicles to get anywhere at a decent pace. If you already own this game, I would recommend giving it a try to see the mechanics but I wouldn't recommend it otherwise. Also, the cat himself reminded me of those from the Petz series.

Project Temporality

16/19 (84%), 13.4 hours

This is a game about manipulating time via recording your character to do multiple actions at once, similar to some levels in The Talos Principle and those in Thinking with Time Machine. You can have up to 11 clones to help you finish a puzzle but you will be awarded a better score for using fewer clones and minimal time recording. I found the puzzles quite challenging, especially towards the end. I'm convinced getting on every level is impossible, achieving is hard enough. Feel free to prove me wrong with gameplay footage though. There is a story told via conversations you have with two people and also through notes found throughout the levels, I couldn't find all the notes. Although I enjoyed this game there is nothing that really makes it stand out as good or bad.