Please support Game Informer. Print magazine subscriptions are less than $2 per issue
Closure
[Welcome to Indie Week at gameinformer.com. We’ve got a full seven days of indie game coverage leading up to the 2010 Independent Games Festival Awards. Check the hub daily for new previews, interviews and other coverage of the top independent games of the year.]
A recipient of multiple nominations this IGF season, Closure has been given nods for excellence in technical design, audio and the ancillary Nuovo award. From what we’ve seen, the attention is well deserved.
Closure is one of those games that is simultaneously intuitive and mind-bending. A puzzle/platformer, Closure has you navigate a man through a 2D environment using orbs of light to illuminate a path to the end of a level. Here's the catch. Objects in the light are real and tangible. Objects that fall into shadows cease to exist. Simple as that. In this regard darkness fails to fulfill the archetypal role as a thing to be feared. Instead, Closure uses darkness as a malleable tool that lets you define the world around you.
The levels start easy in order to train your brain to think with light and dark. One of the first puzzles is fairly linear. Picking up an orb at your feet you must navigate to an illuminated door across the map. About halfway across you butt up against a pillar that separates you from your goal. At an impasse, you now need to back up a few steps (until the darkness veils the pillar) and set the ball of light down. With the pillar obscured, you are are clear to jump the black pit and land safely on the other side.
[View:http://vimeo.com/7303280:610:343]
In early levels these portable orbs of light are your primary tool. Later puzzles become more complex by introducing switches, water, crates, barrels and other ways to interact with your environment. Anti-light bulbs are even added to the mix, making it impossible to shed light on certain parts of the level.
Closure is a simple concept wrapped in a challenging execution. We played 20 levels that sometimes left us in fits of frustration, but were always followed by a glorious moment of clarity. We can’t wait to see more.
(If you want to check out Closure's concept yourself, you can play an earlier flash version of the game for free.)
[Additional Game Details]
Platform: PC Release: TBA Price: TBA Website: Link
I’d like to ask you to support Game Informer’s continued coverage of games with a subscription. For less than two dollars per issue, we mail you a full year of 10 print magazines, each with cover stories and preview features filled with exclusive details about the most exciting upcoming games. We profile and interview game creators. We look back on the rich history of gaming, and we celebrate what’s next.
Here on the website, we offer much of our content for free, including game reviews, daily news, videos, event coverage, and more – all with minimal ads.
We do so with a small editorial team, alongside contributing paid writers from around the world – over 65 individuals from 9 countries around the world, just in the last couple of years.
It’s not possible without support.
In a time when game makers and games coverage have faced hard struggles and layoffs, the future of this 30+ year magazine and community is at risk. Our new standalone magazine subscription is the number one way you can keep us alive – and we believe you’ll get a pretty fantastic gaming magazine in your mailbox every few weeks for your trouble.
Thank you.
