By John Walker on August 1st, 2012 at 4:00 pm.
The Swapper has been in development for a good long while now. We first noticed it in October 2010, and today it’s one of seven games receiving the Indie Fund’s financial support. Today they’ve announced that they’ve had Penumbra’s Tom Jubert writing their game’s story (“leading narrative development”). The 2D puzzle-platformer will apparently discuss such existential questions as whether we have a soul, what is consciousness, and the very nature of our being. Which it’s fair to say is something platformers all too often forget to broach.
It’s (and I love that it’s possible to write “another” here) another clay model-based game, along with using found objects to create a space station environment. Set aboard an abandoned space station, there’s a device – the Swapper – that can transfer consciousness between bodies. And that begins to ask a lot of questions. Take a look at some new screenshots:
The finished game is due some time next year.
01/08/2012 at 16:31 Kein says:
Clickable screenshots, such a rare thing on RPS.
02/08/2012 at 12:40 Torn says:
The lightbox close button image src is incorrect though, it’s looking for “images/lightbox-btn-close.gif” relative to this page i.e. /2012/08/01/in-good-conscious-the-swapper/images/lightbox-btn-close.gif
01/08/2012 at 16:44 povu says:
Kill them.
Kill them all.
Penumbra was interesting.
01/08/2012 at 18:46 Mr. Mister says:
The end twist made Phillip considerably more badass on my eyes.
01/08/2012 at 16:57 gritz says:
Sweet I can’t wait to play [UNDERFUNDED INDIE PLATFORMER]
01/08/2012 at 21:00 Rhin says:
Luckily, you can play [OVERFUNDED SHOOTFRAG 20000] while you wait!
01/08/2012 at 17:01 Gregg B says:
This reminds me of a lot of great things: Vessel, The Dream Machine, Capsized, Metroid, Oddworld… The Penumbra games were brilliant so hearing that Tom’s on board is another big draw as well. I’ll definitely be keeping a close eye on this one.
01/08/2012 at 17:03 Memphis-Ahn says:
Too deep for me.
01/08/2012 at 18:15 Urthman says:
If the Joker killed Batman, would he be happy?
01/08/2012 at 19:59 Nevard says:
Dead people can’t usually be happy
01/08/2012 at 17:23 Nahkatakkimies says:
Facepalm Games are from Finland so you could say the game will be Finnished some time next year.
01/08/2012 at 22:54 Tssha says:
Well played, sir!
01/08/2012 at 17:23 Arcanon says:
As soon as I saw that screenshot I thought: Oddworld.
It must mean the game is good right?
01/08/2012 at 17:49 Toberoth says:
Same here! It’s a looker alright.
02/08/2012 at 01:13 Subjective Effect says:
Yes, looks good. This reminds me of games back in the day (Spectrum and then ST/Amiga). Lots of atmosphere and thought provoking.
When I think back I seem to remember that there were a lot of games with a weird/odd/trippy idea behind them.
PS. Hey RPS, the close X on your gfx pop-ups is missing.
02/08/2012 at 06:58 Eophasmus says:
This looks lovely; the clay / found object visuals seem to give the environment a tangible, believable feel (based on the screenshots and wonderful trailer. I hope this is true of the whole game). Somewhat reminiscent of Another World or Waking Mars (one of the few decent iOS games).
The storyline sounds interesting too. I hope it is as deep as it sounds – in my experience, platformers tend to have quite lightweight plots.
02/08/2012 at 09:12 MadMinstrel says:
Just looking at the screenshots it immediately reminds me of Shadow Complex. Which I loved.
02/08/2012 at 14:59 ColonelClaw says:
“The 2D puzzle-platformer will apparently discuss such existential questions as whether we have a soul, what is consciousness, and the very nature of our being. Which it’s fair to say is something platformers all too often forget to broach.”
Well, you say that, but I was always impressed by Jet Set Willy’s take on existentialism as seen by Fyodor Dostoyevsky – particularly the angle he pursued in The Brothers Karamazov. Having said that it could be argued that Miner Willy’s epic struggle to tidy his life up leans more towards the protagonist’s struggles to find a meaningful outlook on his faith in Crime and Punishment.
03/08/2012 at 15:59 DrunkDog says:
We must perform a Quirkafleeg. That is all.