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Antichamber: A reason to say 'non-euclidean'

Just got a force restart crash after alt-tabbing back in.

The game doesn't feel like it should have been made in Unreal Engine. The visual artifacts kind of sour the art and even go some way to ruin the puzzles when you can see a little glitch and you find a secret passage. The sound is very beautiful though, makes me pine for more sound driven puzzles in games.

At the Hayward Gallery in London atm, Carlos Cruz-Diez is doing a light show called Chromosaturation very reminscent of Antichamber. Kinda reminds me of normal maps put onto colour channels.

Light-Show-at-the-Hayward-010.jpg
 

Cartman86

Banned
Went back and got all of the icons. Screenshot of them all on the wall - probably considered a spoiler. http://cloud-2.steampowered.com/ugc/903239049202028002/6E09DB3A707E69C3F51B31CEA5ED10C70EB7E806/

And here's a shortcut I found that would be useful for early game. Spoiler involves early mechanics that you might not know about, as well as hidden rooms.

Description of spoiler:
How to go from blue gun to green gun incredibly quickly.

Actual ass spoiler instructions:
Once you have the blue gun, go to the room that says WALK. I think this room is called 'leap of faith' although I don't quite remember. Walk across the gap, and turn right. You'll be looking at a short hallway that ends with an abrupt wall. Walk through the wall, and collect about 30 green blocks from the FLY?! sign.
Go back the way you came, back to the start of the WALK gap. There will be an eye icon. Look at it until it disappears. This eye takes about 20-30 seconds to disappear. Make sure you're looking at its pupil. You'll know it's working if it starts to blink.
Inside will be an icon refering to patience, and a puzzle with thee groups of two lasers intersecting, with a pair of blue blocks opposite eachother on the left and right laser.
With the green blocks you collected, stack them so that you cut through the middle of the laser. This will open the door on the other end of the room.
Go through the door, and place two blocks in the wall lasers. Keep walking. You'll see an icon that says shortcuts are valid. Heh.
Turn right and you'll be at the green gun.

I also found this amazing easter egg room. I now believe I've gone to every room in the game (sans purple). http://cloud.steampowered.com/ugc/903239049202136668/C68512B6356CA7C72744FE9BC721F63017F2ED3C/

There is still one thing on the map that implies there might be a hidden room, though...

Got any hints for the Hitting A Wall area? I've got the
wall built and fallen down to the red block puzzle thing.
Can't for the life of me figure out how to solve that.
 

Kritz

Banned
Got any hints for the Hitting A Wall area? I've got the
wall built and fallen down to the red block puzzle thing.
Can't for the life of me figure out how to solve that.

Simple barely even a hint hint:
You've probably done this mechanic before
Slightly bigger hint:
You used it to get the red gun
The goal you're trying to reach is:
Remove all the blocks from the lasers
The mechanic is:
When you click on blocks that reappear, if you move the blocks that don't fizzle out, these blocks will separate

Specific solution:
move the blocks to the bottom right, as far that way as you can.
Remove the block in the bottom right.
Quickly select and move the bottom left blocks up, away from the ones you removed.
Move these blocks to the top right.
Remove the top right most block, then quickly move the remaining top blocks to the left.

This next bit takes some good reflexes to pull off.

Remove the top left block.
Quickly move the top right block one step left, and then move it back right. Do this before the other block reappears. There should now be two blocks top right, one block top left.

Move the top left block down to the position without lasers

You've probably solved it by now, but there ya go.
 

Cartman86

Banned
Simple barely even a hint hint:
You've probably done this mechanic before
Slightly bigger hint:
You used it to get the red gun
The goal you're trying to reach is:
Remove all the blocks from the lasers
The mechanic is:
When you click on blocks that reappear, if you move the blocks that don't fizzle out, these blocks will separate

Specific solution:
move the blocks to the bottom right, as far that way as you can.
Remove the block in the bottom right.
Quickly select and move the bottom left blocks up, away from the ones you removed.
Move these blocks to the top right.
Remove the top right most block, then quickly move the remaining top blocks to the left.

This next bit takes some good reflexes to pull off. Thanks.

Remove the top left block.
Quickly move the top right block one step left, and then move it back right. Do this before the other block reappears. There should now be two blocks top right, one block top left.

Move the top left block down to the position without lasers

You've probably solved it by now, but there ya go.

Argg forgot about that specific goal.
 

Daedardus

Member
Almost beat the game. I'm only missing three signs and the southern exit of
Laying the Foundation
.

Anyone got some hints to what to do?
I believe it has to do with the regenerating wall in the middle, but I can't seem to make a hole big enough for me to fit in.
.
 

Kritz

Banned
Almost beat the game. I'm only missing three signs and the southern exit of
Laying the Foundation
.

Anyone got some hints to what to do?
I believe it has to do with the regenerating wall in the middle, but I can't seem to make a hole big enough for me to fit in.
.

I don't remember the exact puzzle, but you should be able to
move the wall
.

Looking at the Steam forums, nobody seems to know what on earth the purple cubes actually do. What a weird thing.
 
I just finished it with some hints here and there. I can't say I enjoyed it very much; a couple of the solutions felt almost too obscure, and the block mechanics, specifically the (possible spoiler regarding gameplay)
disintegration and reintegration, or "farming", of blocks
needed some kind of in-game explanation.

I needed more introduction to the game play elements; more puzzles after each gun regarding its specific purpose, perhaps.
 

BlazinAm

Junior Member
Does it bother anyone when people say "non-euclidean geometry is not real"? Kinda bother me for some reason.
 

Daedardus

Member
I don't remember the exact puzzle, but you should be able to
move the wall
.

Looking at the Steam forums, nobody seems to know what on earth the purple cubes actually do. What a weird thing.

I'm talking about the cube in the middle, with the orbs that expand based on the speed you are walking. The orbs destroy the wall, but don't make a hole big enough and the wall regenerates too quickly. You sure it can be moved?
 

Kritz

Banned
I'm talking about the cube in the middle, with the orbs that expand based on the speed you are walking. The orbs destroy the wall, but don't make a hole big enough and the wall regenerates too quickly. You sure it can be moved?

Ohhhh.

It's rather quite tricky to get it down, but the way I did it was...

Don't keep moving once you've already broken a lot of the cube. Let it regenerate, and try again. If you keep moving, it'll regenerate too much over any area you want to move through.

I found that only one of the sides consistently made a hole big enough to jump through. Move around, try to look for the hole, wait for the cube to regenerate, then move to where you saw the biggest hole. Then move around to break it open again, and usually it breaks open in a similar pattern as before.

You know, there was actually one puzzle I never did solve. I'm not sure if the puzzle was actually unsolvable. But it had a gate that closed faster than you could move through it, and I couldn't find any way to bring a block into the puzzle room. And the actual point where the gate was, was about five puzzle rooms deep, with no way to teleport to any of them except for where you find the entrance.

I might make a photo diary of it to see if anyone else has found out how to do it / if there's anything through the puzzle.

because there is at least one optional puzzle with no reward for completing it, heh.

--

For those curious, I did a 20 minute playthrough of the game using only the yellow gun. Spoilers below.
Part 1 / Part 2

Only takes 10 minutes with the red gun :(
 

Daedardus

Member
You know, there was actually one puzzle I never did solve. I'm not sure if the puzzle was actually unsolvable. But it had a gate that closed faster than you could move through it, and I couldn't find any way to bring a block into the puzzle room. And the actual point where the gate was, was about five puzzle rooms deep, with no way to teleport to any of them except for where you find the entrance.
(

Was it
Falling Forward
? I'm stuck at the
stairs after the green cube.

Edit. Thanks for the tip about
Laying the foundation. The room was disappointing though.

And I must have overlooked two signs, can anyone say which room they are in?
 

Kritz

Banned
Was it
Falling Forward
? I'm stuck at the
stairs after the green cube.

Yup, that's the one.

Here's how to get to the point that I'm at, although it only takes a little bit of exploring that room to work out how.
On the middle level of stairs there is a pathway that is invisible until you walk up to it. It will take you around the room in an alternate pathway.

Once you're past that, and I won't put answers in these spoilers in case you want to solve it yourself,
You go past a room with those birdy-ball-sense-you're-moving-too-fast things, into a purple room with two eyes, you end up at a jumpy puzzle,
and then you're stuck where I am.

The ONLY clue that could be relevant to that room is the sign you encounter immediately before it. It says,
You can't do everything yourself
. And there are some pretty obvious connotations of what that could mean, if rumours of the dev wanting to patch in more content after the fact are true. It also makes sense if you consider the
UNDER CONSTRUCTION
door.

God at this point I kind of just want to try and enable noclip to see if that room's just a cocktease or not. :(
EDIT:
it totally is, fuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuck goddamnit.
 

Daedardus

Member
God at this point I kind of just want to try and enable noclip to see if that room's just a cocktease or not. :(
EDIT regarding ^:
it totally is, fuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuck goddamnit.

The developer said he wants to add content to that room. But the puzzles are the hardest in the game and that's why I'm doing them :)
 

Kritz

Banned
The developer said he wants to add content to that room. But the puzzles are the hardest in the game and that's why I'm doing them :)

Regarding how I got in:
If you run at a door right before it hits the top, the time it takes for its velocity to hit 0 and to start falling again is longer than it takes to run through the door.

At this point I have played 13 hours of Antichamber. I might have to uninstall this game now, because I have sucked it dry and after two days I need to let my brain not focus on mind bendy puzzle games before I'm unable to navigate my own home.
 

Daedardus

Member
Regarding how I got in:
If you run at a door right before it hits the top, the time it takes for its velocity to hit 0 and to start falling again is longer than it takes to run through the door.

At this point I have played 13 hours of Antichamber. I might have to uninstall this game now, because I have sucked it dry and after two days I need to let my brain not focus on mind bendy puzzle games before I'm unable to navigate my own home.

What distance did you started running. I'm having trouble getting the timing exactly right. It seems I have to move so fast that the orbs in the green never come into the core again but I have a hard time with that.

And getting to my bedroom in my house isn't that hard. You start from the hallways and walk into the bathroom, then you walk backwards into the living room. You then smash a hidden wall to reach the kitchen, where you must stand on a chair
and pull yourself up the disapearing stairs
.
 

demidar

Member
I 100% it in one sitting, or at least I think I did. My map room has filled out and I got all the icons... but there's this room, it has 4 cells in it similar to the art gallery where each side shows a number between 1 and 4. There is a + sign, and arrow pointing to the entrance and and equal sign lines up on the floor and I never could figure out what that room was about. Doesn't help that 3 of the cells were glitchy and swapped between numbers even while looking from the same side.
 

Jintor

Member
Also it's not closing properly when I quit and Steam thinks it's still open and won't let me restart it unless I deliberately crash Steam
 

Kritz

Banned
Also it's not closing properly when I quit and Steam thinks it's still open and won't let me restart it unless I deliberately crash Steam

ctrl+shift+esc is your friend. :D
The process name is UDK.exe.

I'm not sure what was up with number room. I assumed it was some weird forth dimensional shit.

There's enough red herrings in that game to make me feel that it's either completely meaningless or part of some elaborate fez-style metagame I don't have the patience to work out.
 

pa22word

Member
Wow, this game is really unnerving o_o

Really enjoying it though. Block puzzles are annoying though. I wish the game dealt more with the situational awareness and movement rather than putting blocks in certain areas.
 

Daedardus

Member
There's enough red herrings in that game to make me feel that it's either completely meaningless or part of some elaborate fez-style metagame I don't have the patience to work out.

Remember the sign that said
Some things don't have a deeper meaning. The 'under construction door is a good example of that, there is nothing under construction.

I now have almost beaten the game, apart from those two signs I somewhere forgot. Does anyone know
How many purple cubes there are? I now have found five of them. Maybe they have to do something with the empty room?
 

demidar

Member
Remember the sign that said
Some things don't have a deeper meaning. The 'under construction door is a good example of that, there is nothing under construction.

I now have almost beaten the game, apart from those two signs I somewhere forgot. Does anyone know
How many purple cubes there are? I now have found five of them. Maybe they have to do something with the empty room?

I never kept track, but now I'm curious as to the why they're there. It would be a lot easier if the game kept track of it subtly somehow.
 
Getting lost climbing the tower. Red tool in my sights.

The Thirty Flights of Loving Style
museum
seemed kinda unnecessary to me.
 

Jac_Solar

Member
Holy fucking shitballs. I've used computers for 10+ hours a day every day for the last decade and I never knew that ctrl+alt+shift brought task managed up without ctrl+alt+delete.

Huh? Ctrl+alt+shift?

And indeed, there are lots of useful shortcuts to figure out. But Windows itself doesn't really tell you about this -- you'd have to search for it I think.
 
D

Deleted member 30609

Unconfirmed Member
Getting a new gun in this game feels so. good.
 

Daedardus

Member
Found the purple cube in the
Rabbit's Hole. It was pretty fun to do.

Now I'm looking for more cubes in
Hidden secrets. A room can't have a name like that and not have a secret.
 

Daedardus

Member
Found the purple cube in the
Rabbit's Hole. It was pretty fun to do.

Now I'm looking for more cubes in
Hidden secrets. A room can't have a name like that and not have a secret.

Big thing I found:
The room 'behind' hidden secrets with the rotating numbers seems to be a puzzle. The +, = and the arrow can be stepped on and change the numbers in a certain way. Currently trying to figure out if there's more to it.

Doublepost, woops
 

Ambitious

Member
I'm done for today. Every time I finally find something new, it's just a secret room. I've seen both the
red gun and the blue gun
but can't reach neither of them. I'm stuck pretty much everywhere, but don't want to consult a walkthrough...
 

Hop

That girl in the bunny hat
Is the Nokia
snake
thing just a gimmick or an actual puzzle? Been running around on it for about 20 minutes.

Depends what you mean by that. That sort of thing is important in solving a bunch of other puzzles, but I don't recall a room that has one to start out with.
 
Getting to 'hitting walls' each time with some cubes is fucking infuriating. Pretty sure that puzzle has a no win state so you have to go back through and do it again.
 

Inkwell

Banned
Is the Nokia
snake
thing just a gimmick or an actual puzzle? Been running around on it for about 20 minutes.

I think it's just a bonus room like the others.

Getting to 'hitting walls' each time with some cubes is fucking infuriating. Pretty sure that puzzle has a no win state so you have to go back through and do it again.

Is that the room with the 2 bounce pads? If so, I actually cheated my way through that one. I'm not 100% sure how I do it, but you can either bounce at a slight angle or move yourself in mid-air. You'll sometimes hit the edge of the areas containing the bounce pads and fall down.
 

Hop

That girl in the bunny hat
Is that the room with the 2 bounce pads? If so, I actually cheated my way through that one. I'm not 100% sure how I do it, but you can either bounce at a slight angle or move yourself in mid-air. You'll sometimes hit the edge of the areas containing the bounce pads and fall down.

Wrong room, nevermind.

I kinda wish the bounce pads showed up again in the final puzzle. Don't care how, just wanted to bounce around some more.
 

bistromathics

facing a bright new dawn
Yikes, I cant believe this thread has only two pages and is not constantly on the front page of GAF. This is the most stunning game I've played since Portal 1. The parallels between the two games are obvious, but Antichamber has clicked with me and held my attention a _lot_ better than Portal 2. For a good long while I always felt confused, but always managed to end up in the right place...something the dev must have been tuning and refining for (apparently) years.

I've been marathoning it the past two days and feel like i'm near the end (
just about got the red gun
). Since it's so fresh in my mind, I know the names of the rooms I left off in and the recent puzzles I was stuck at...but if I were to hypothetically fast-travel to some random room, then quit the game and take a month-long break or whatever...how would I be able to know where to start again when selecting from the world map? Some paths have arrows sticking out from them - does that mean there is another path in that area? The thing is i've got like 5 or 6 corridors with arrows at this point and even though the game kinda presents itself as being pretty open (e.g. map title says "choose your destination"), it seems to have a pretty linear, A to B to C style of play.

Even if A really takes you to Z, then dumps you back to A, then sends you to A', you do eventually get to B.
 

Daedardus

Member
Yikes, I cant believe this thread has only two pages and is not constantly on the front page of GAF. This is the most stunning game I've played since Portal 1. The parallels between the two games are obvious, but Antichamber has clicked with me and held my attention a _lot_ better than Portal 2. For a good long while I always felt confused, but always managed to end up in the right place...something the dev must have been tuning and refining for (apparently) years.

I've been marathoning it the past two days and feel like i'm near the end (
just about got the red gun
). Since it's so fresh in my mind, I know the names of the rooms I left off in and the recent puzzles I was stuck at...but if I were to hypothetically fast-travel to some random room, then quit the game and take a month-long break or whatever...how would I be able to know where to start again when selecting from the world map? Some paths have arrows sticking out from them - does that mean there is another path in that area? The thing is i've got like 5 or 6 corridors with arrows at this point and even though the game kinda presents itself as being pretty open (e.g. map title says "choose your destination"), it seems to have a pretty linear, A to B to C style of play.

Even if A really takes you to Z, then dumps you back to A, then sends you to A', you do eventually get to B.

An arrow sticking out means the room is connected to the area that shows up when you hoover over the arrow. Took me a while to figure that out.

Also have all signs, full map and about seven purple cubes. :)
 
Finished. I'd say it's worth playing if you can get past the harsh whiteness. Personally I found it to be uncomfortable to play, in a bad way. I think it could have worked just as well with regular lighting and shading. To my mind it's just another case of indie developers trying to be avant garde for the sake of it. The low fi in game map feels like a prototype rather than something that should ship with a commercial game. It wasn't very clear what you had been, something to say "this route is complete" would have been much nicer. Like when Fez's cubes when gold.

Thematically it's cool, it feels like a very personal game. I'd love to know if the puzzles ever informed the narrative or visa versa. I even grew to like the little clip art drawings.

I'll probably need to think about it some more, in terms of ideas the game is up there with Mario Galaxy or Portal.. it's an incredibly lean game, but it's wrapped up in something that makes it hard for me to appreciate.
 

Daedardus

Member
Finished. I'd say it's worth playing if you can get past the harsh whiteness. Personally I found it to be uncomfortable to play, in a bad way. I think it could have worked just as well with regular lighting and shading. To my mind it's just another case of indie developers trying to be avant garde for the sake of it. The low fi in game map feels like a prototype rather than something that should ship with a commercial game. It wasn't very clear what you had been, something to say "this route is complete" would have been much nicer. Like when Fez's cubes when gold.

Thematically it's cool, it feels like a very personal game. I'd love to know if the puzzles ever informed the narrative or visa versa. I even grew to like the little clip art drawings.

I'll probably need to think about it some more, in terms of ideas the game is up there with Mario Galaxy or Portal.. it's an incredibly lean game, but it's wrapped up in something that makes it hard for me to appreciate.

It's an indie game made by one guy. He spent six years developing the puzzles, there's no chance he would even be able to come up with sophisticated textures and lightning, not with his budget.

And the map does show when something is complete. Incomplete hallways/rooms show up as a tiny bar. Completed rooms only have arrows or cul-de-sacs around them.
 

Wok

Member
An arrow sticking out means the room is connected to the area that shows up when you hoover over the arrow. Took me a while to figure that out.

And the map does show when something is complete. Incomplete hallways/rooms show up as a tiny bar. Completed rooms only have arrows or cul-de-sacs around them.

Thanks for the info. I was looking for other paths which do not exist.
 

atomsk

Party Pooper
7.7 hours in and I've finally made it to
The Escape

...and immediately find myself baffled as to how to get
the red blocks
 

wutwutwut

Member
Getting to 'hitting walls' each time with some cubes is fucking infuriating. Pretty sure that puzzle has a no win state so you have to go back through and do it again.
No it's not,
if you have the red gun.

Hint:
Start from the Impossible Paths room by picking up yellow blocks from "Hmm". Then look below "WTF" for a 1-block wide gap in the floor, and fill that up with red blocks.
 
It's an indie game made by one guy. He spent six years developing the puzzles, there's no chance he would even be able to come up with sophisticated textures and lightning, not with his budget.

And the map does show when something is complete. Incomplete hallways/rooms show up as a tiny bar. Completed rooms only have arrows or cul-de-sacs around them.
I think the art was completely intentional, some of the choices were probably just as time consuming and had their own challenges compared to doing "sophisticated textures". And I guess I was too stupid to notice that. It's hard to stand out in the crowded first person puzzle genre post-Portal.
No it's not,
if you have the red gun.

Hint:
Start from the Impossible Paths room by picking up yellow blocks from "Hmm". Then look below "WTF" for a 1-block wide gap in the floor, and fill that up with red blocks.
I must be missing something because
I had the red gun
, and used the very solution you describe to get there. It still doesn't explain the fail state in the puzzle or the fact that there are no cubes in the room for you to use meaning you have to go through that long process to carry cubes there, only to fail and have to retry it. Finding the same design sensibilities in entrepreneur. Not so much challenging puzzles but rather tedious ones. Suppose the joke is on me if I'm missing something glaringly obvious but I kind of stopped caring at this point.
 

atomsk

Party Pooper
No it's not,
if you have the red gun.

Hint:
Start from the Impossible Paths room by picking up yellow blocks from "Hmm". Then look below "WTF" for a 1-block wide gap in the floor, and fill that up with red blocks.

Mannn, I did that shit the hard way and
dragged the letters with the yellow gun and walked on them as they were moving
 

Daedardus

Member
Anyone get a list of purple cubes they have found? Here are some I have found (major spoilers ofcourse):

The one in the room at the rock bottom of Rabbit's Hole.
The one in Four Different Exits.
The one above the pink porthole.
The one behind the disapearing stairs.
The one in the room with the 'life clock'.
The one in Butterfly Effect, in the hidden room behind the blue cube's flooring.
And another one I randomly stumbled across on. Don't know how I got there anymore nor in which direction I found.

I must be missing something because
I had the red gun
, and used the very solution you describe to get there. It still doesn't explain the fail state in the puzzle or the fact that there are no cubes in the room for you to use meaning you have to go through that long process to carry cubes there, only to fail and have to retry it. Finding the same design sensibilities in entrepreneur. Not so much challenging puzzles but rather tedious ones. Suppose the joke is on me if I'm missing something glaringly obvious but I kind of stopped caring at this point.

You pump the whole floor under the WTF, run over it and just suck it up when you reach the other side. Pretty obvious once you get the red gun and know what it does. And the fact that the WTF is red, is a sign that you can't solve it (easily) without the red gun.
 
You pump the whole floor under the WTF, run over it and just suck it up when you reach the other side. Pretty obvious once you get the red gun and know what it does. And the fact that the WTF is red, is a sign that you can't solve it (easily) without the red gun.
I've done it enough times now to not waste my time doing that. Like atomsk said, you can do it just
ride a train of cubes Mario style.
Getting there is not hard, the puzzle in the room is broken for me.
Jon Blow has some inside info, apparently Antichamber is selling even faster than Braid did!
Well Braid was a super late and delayed port. But I suppose that's reassuring.
 
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