Joystiq

Antichamber chops half off its price, Starseed Pilgrim takes off on Steam

Jessica Conditt — Tue, 16 Apr 2013 22:45:00 EST

Antichamber is half off on Steam through April 18 at 4 p.m. PT, bringing the price of completely blowing your mind to $10. What a steal. Antichamber has already "absolutely, exponentially" made back its production costs for developer Alexander Bruce, but a Steam sale never hurt anyone.

In more psychological Steam news, IGF nominee Starseed Pilgrim is out now to teach you how to tend the seeds of the universe. You little gardener, you. Starseed Pilgrim is $6, now and forever, for PC and Mac.

Antichamber chops half off its price, Starseed Pilgrim takes off on Steam originally appeared on Joystiq on Tue, 16 Apr 2013 22:45:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Antichamber preview: Psycholudology

Griffin McElroy — Fri, 02 Sep 2011 15:00:00 EST

Trying to describe the hour I spent with Alexander Bruce's PAX 10 Finalist indie game, Antichamber, is going to be one of the most difficult descriptive feats I've ever attempted. I think that the big hang-up is that it's going to mean a lot of different things to a lot of different people: For me, my time with the game was all about learning the obscure rules of a universe with no immediate context; a game about second, then third, then fourth-guessing my own actions until I found a solution I was able to walk away from with just a modicum of satisfaction.

For the person who took up the demo after me, it was about moving forward as quickly he could, attempting to adhere to an entirely pointless 90-minute time limit while ignoring all the lessons the game had to teach. Here's the thing: I'm not entirely sure either of us was playing it wrong.

Continue reading Antichamber preview: Psycholudology

Antichamber preview: Psycholudology originally appeared on Joystiq on Fri, 02 Sep 2011 15:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Indie game 'Hazard: The Journey of Life' is now Antichamber

JC Fletcher — Wed, 06 Jul 2011 18:00:00 EST

Hazard: The Journey of Life, by Alexander Bruce, is a super-abstract first-person exploration game, whose rules seem to constantly change. For example, a door might not lead to the same place twice, and a wall might be a door depending on how you look at it. And now, even the name has shifted -- to Antichamber, in advance of its commercial release ("when it's done").

Speaking to Joystiq, Bruce explained the motivations behind the midstream re-christening, by way of explaining the evolution of the name and the game. "Hazard' was chosen back when I was first exploring the geometry system," he said, "and the game was all about killing players in an arena combat game, but eventually that idea died off, and I just kept calling anything related to the geometry system 'Hazard' because I was used to it." He began adding "philosophical" themes "about choices and metaphor" in 2009, at which point the "Journey of Life" subtitle came in.

Now, he explained, the game is less about philosophy and more about "non-Euclidean space, non-physical geometry and massively toying with expectations in a meaningful way." Antichamber covers those angles better than Hazard did. "The game speaks for itself, so the name change is really just bringing it up to date with everything else that has changed."

Indie game 'Hazard: The Journey of Life' is now Antichamber originally appeared on Joystiq on Wed, 06 Jul 2011 18:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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