Test Chamber Review

Developer: Shark Jump Studios
Price: FREE
Version Reviewed: 3.00
App Reviewed on: iPhone 5

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Puzzle games can be tricky to get just right. They to be tuned so that they're tough enough for players feel smart for figuring things out, but not so tough that they leave people frustrated or confused. Even if the concept is really awesome and innovative, this balance has to be right. Unfortunately, for Test Chamber - a game with a really incredible set of base mechanics and ideas - it's such a mindbender that it can be hard to appreciate the creativity it brings to the table.

Test Chamber starts by telling players that something isn't right with the mostly monochromatic world. This becomes immediately apparent when players start to move their character in the center of the screen, only to see other versions of their character move the same way on the periphery. Essentially ittrades on having small levels that sort of "loop" or "tile" together so that players can control sliding blocks and other puzzle pieces in the game from different angles.

Using this setup, Test Chamber asks players to find ways to build a path to an exit that's marked as a blue pit. In the beginning this can be as simple as moving a block out of the way or sliding a set of blocks to bridge a gap, but ratchets, portals, and more pop-up soon enough - all of which may need to be navigated via Test Chamber's crazy non-euclidean duplicates. In order to pump up the replayability, there is also a ranking system based on how few moves it takes players to solve a puzzle.

Although all of this sounds pretty great, Test Chamber's biggest problem is that it's so difficult it can leave players scratching their heads for days, even after the first few levels. To be clear, the thing that makes Test Chamber hard isn't its "fewest moves" challenge or any sort of roadblocks that force restarts (actually, it has a quite useful and awesome rewind system). Instead, the goal of each level is so obtuse that it can be tough to know where to begin or what to do after reaching a certain point. Because of the lack of clarity and obscure puzzle setups, solving levels can be very satisfying for the players that stick with them but too frustrating for others to put up with.

Pairing this difficulty with such a cool world and concepts makes Test Chamber even more frustrating. I can see the potential right before my eyes, but within the first five stages I had to resort to YouTube walkthroughs just to know how to start a level to see more of the cool ideas in later levels. Promises of user-created puzzles might make it worth returning to down the road, but for nowTest Chamber is only really recommendable for players of the extremely cerebral and patient variety.