Delightful Distortion In Puzzler Pertinence
The puzzler that'll play on your mind
I've not been able to properly put Pertinence [official site] out of my mind since I stumbled across it. Granted, that was less than 24 hours ago but I've already re-run several of the action-puzzler's scenarios in my mind that had me stumped yesterday with the aim of returning later to see if I'm right. I probably, almost definitely, won't be. But I like games like that, so thought I'd share this with you.
Here, check out this wee trailer which, aside from giving you a quick glance at what Pertinence is all about, sounds like it was put together by French electronica band Air. It wasn't, but Air are amazing, obviously, before anyone suggests that's not something to get excited about:
As you can sort of see there, you're the little blue blob tasked with weaving your way through sterile-looking puzzles, grabbing keys, unlocking doors and generally avoiding turrets, lasers, tripwires, big red tentacled octopus-a-like baddies and "killer dance pads". Obviously.
What's a wee bit boring about Pertinence is how progression is handled - you collect pre-determined numbers of 'Alloys' to unlock end-of-zone gates which is, yeah, a bit yawn - but what makes it special is its use of 'Nodes'. Nodes allow you to manipulate the level around you in order to meet your goals: you can bend walls, redirect enemy gun fire, distort surfaces, or pull objects closer, to name but a few of the leg-ups you can treat yourself to.
Nodes come in three different forms - normal, locked and static - and, as later, more complex levels introduce two or three at once, how you go about completion is fun and mind-boggling in equal measure. While writing this, I've come up with another mind-mapped haphazard solution to a puzzle that I'm away to try right now.
Pertinence lives on Greenlight at the moment and if it's your cup of tea can also be bought on Itch at the discounted price of $0.98 (which my bank statement informs me works out as 66 pence).