Glitchspace

Short, simple, sweet. I only had to look up answers a couple times because I couldn't find the end goal in a level, and generally had a little bit of trouble remembering my whole toolkit during endgame, but pretty solid puzzle experience.

It lacks in story, but it makes up for that in atmosphere, I think.

'Takes out number 50. Multiplies it to 2500. Places Y Vector. Applies force. Jumps on jump pad. Meets God.'

The story is simply your ability to move forward in a giant abstract arena where you’re required to constantly programme red cuboids to do your bidding. This testing zone is made challenging through both the introduction of various programming commands as well as the taking away of them. While the first quarter of the 3 hr game will be just you simply moving, stretching and rotating the direction of various red platforms, the latter two thirds will require you to learn some more slightly complicated commands like trying to find the specific identification number of a cube etc.

One thing that makes this game shine more than others in its wake is that it will often demonstrate the consequence of a bad command. Unlike other games like 'Android John' which simply states 'Bad code logic', this one will allow you to make poor choices like the one mentioned above where I chose to multiply 50 instead of 10. This allows you to LEARN as you become acquainted with what each principal component in your tool belt does.

The second thing I liked thanks to the somewhat versatility of the options available to you, especially on my second play through, I was able to work out quite a few short cuts where I could get around obstacles in a different manner than what was intended. In fact I was able to shave off nearly an hour in my total time. One puzzle I was even able to jump straight to the end portal, in another I was able to programme a cuboid to solve another puzzle two obstacles ahead. Learning how to 'cut corners' even made the game more fascinating for me. Unfortunately no time leader board was established in the game simply because that was not the developer’s main intention when developing.

Thirdly, this alien parkour scape was so enriched with nice visuals. Inspiring data streams, abstract worlds in the background, even more brought to life, with the help of a hostile and tantalizing soundscape. At one part I was able to hear seagulls, which freaked me out as it was something I was able to relate to, while I personally felt foreign in an alien environment that resembled a mash between the internet and my pc cooling tower. The wanting to know where I was, what I was doing there and what the purpose of this place was, beckoned me to keep enduring regardless of the formidable tasks that laid ahead.

Sadly this is the second and last game from 'Space Budgies' the very talented Scottish developers that were also behind the tsunami victim remembrance called '903m'. https://twitter.com/SpaceBudgie (their twitter feed shows some interesting old concepts for Glitch Space). For unmentioned reasons they have simply moved on completely changing to what I assume they consider an easier market with a larger profit margin, that being vaper pens. So, in a final farewell and thanks, they have generously made this game and its accompanying soundtrack completely free for people to play and listen too.

Since their venture is finished, there seems to be no point mentioning that I wished that there was more actual 'story' than a simple progression mechanic, likewise it seemed rather pointless there being an additional sandbox mode which is basically a playground where you can play with all the mechanics at the same time and have nothing hindering you. It seems that there was a golden opportunity missed that they didn't also add the ability of 'Workshop'. Inspiring the multitudes of programming geniuses to invent glitch space worlds to really bring the wonderful world of programming and the infinity of possibilities to life.

In final, thumbs up, placed on y vector, applied force, multiply 50. Hello 'Space Budgie' God!

https://youtu.be/b6CymQkhtXY

If you enjoyed reading this review feel free to subscribe to my curator page. Thanks...

http://store.steampowered.com/curator/6843548/

Extremely excellent concept and mechanics with huge potential. All this game needs is more levels and gameplay! I would be more than willing to have additional levels and gameplay as DLC.

I started off enjoying the game. Simple, but engaging enough to keep playing. Sometimes the solutions jumped out at me, sometimes I sat and stewed for a while before having an "Ah-ha!" moment. A peaceful puzzler to occupy my time.

Eventually though, the puzzles started to become less fun, and some rather poor design decisions jumped out. Like the repeated instances of jumps that are only just barely doable if you really stretch. A puzzle where the goal is poorly indicated. And what eventually drove me to stop were the puzzles that didn't seem to have any kind of actual solution, just brute force and luck. I'm still not sure if climbing out of the level onto the roof was intended, or "cheating."

Ultimately, a good idea, but could have used more testing I think, and I really don't think I can recommend it.

I have been programming for easily over a decade, and my career is in software engineering, so I usually enjoy these kinds of games.

But Glitchspace, ironically, is filled with a lot of glitches, and is very inefficient. I picked up the premise very quickly, made it through a handful of areas, and unlocked a few different categories of programming in about 30 minutes or so. And yet, the game's downfalls were jumping out at me.

Most importantly, I think that Glitchspace didn't go through a proper QA (Quality Assurance) at all. Numerous times I had the game get me stuck if I hit an obstacle that made me respawn, because the game almost never respawns you in a safe place. For instance, there was a block that makes you fly forward off of a ledge. The game respawned me so that the block immediately threw me off again, and I was in an infinite loop of respawning.

Another example was where I was on a block and moved it a little too quickly in a direction so it hit a wall. The game made the block disappear and said that it went out of bounds and was reset. However, the game glitched me through the wall, so I was sitting on an invisible ledge on the other side, unable to move. And if I went to the menu and clicked "Respawn," it simply respawned me at this invisible edge where I was stuck.

The last example I encountered in the first 30 minutes was when I tried to explore a little and jumped off of a tall block to an area down below, but couldn't get back up. Yet again, clicking "Respawn" simply respawned me where I was, leaving me there. So the "Respawn" button is almost useless in the menu as it usually respawns you where you are currently standing, or at a bad place the game code made you go.

The only way to actually get out of an area you are stuck in is to choose to return to the last portal you went through. Some portals are not exactly close together, so what this means is that you might have to redo a whole section of an area just because the game got you stuck somewhere. That got me angry really quickly.

Next up is the actual mechanics. The game’s concept is interesting, but the implementation is poor. Most of the puzzles I went through weren't puzzles. They were very repetitive and boring, and that was amplified by the interface used to program the blocks. What I really would have enjoyed would have been an interface where you choose a category, then it has drop-down menus and text fields to edit, instead of having a bunch of separate nodes for every single thing.

For instance, you can move a block along its X, Y, or Z axis. In order to do this, you must spawn a node that says "Move Object," and you must spawn a node that explicitly says the axis you want, and then you must spawn a node that chooses a hard-coded value of the distance, and THEN you must connect all of them together to finally move the block. Further, if you accidentally choose something wrong, like say the distance, you must delete the node and re-create it to choose another value. You cannot edit the nodes directly to replace a value, but instead have to make a brand new one and re-connect.

That interface is so inefficient. In my suggestion above, it would have made more sense to simply have a single node that says "Move Object," and the node pops up a little menu that says "Axis" with a drop-down menu saying X, Y, or Z, and with another drop-down menu allowing you to choose the distance. This would have made it quicker to program objects, and further it would have enabled you to actually edit a node because it could just pop the menu back up and let you change a field.

Besides the above, there is obviously no story, and the graphics of the game are nothing special at all. Very monotone, really.

With the mechanics being so bad and seeing so many annoying glitches so quickly, I lost any desire to continue, and definitely don’t think the game is worth much in its current state. The developers flew a great idea up high and then smashed it into the ground with their implementation.

I hate writing this kind of negative critics... The game is full of good intentions, I can imagine the team has worked really hard on that project, but the essential isn't here... Let me explain before going on level design.
This game is about scripting the behavior of your environment. Unfortunately, since this game is essentially a puzzle/platformer and that an automatic respawn is set up in the game, sometimes it happens that you have to restart the level completely because you are stuck in a spawn kill loop (you spawn on a place where you can't escape alive). This over the weird collisions on the edges of the meshes will get your nerves really tensed!

As well, the ergonomy over the (very complete) nodal scripting interface is really tedious to manage. I'm absolutely sure that some optimization of the interface would save 50% of the clicks...

Enough for the not level design part...

Despite the rich gameplay, the GD elements have been very poorly exploited. Elements are very well introduced, but we are barely challenged on those. Where in portal, the scheme "exposition-introduction-learning-challenge" is well done, Glitchspace stops at the learning phase... The game exposes all the richness of it's gameplay when challenging us very very little.

I would also like to add that despite the game's name is "Glitchspace", the vast rooms push you to explore, but your adventure won't be rewarded, since nothing else than the regular puzzle is to discover... And for the glitch side, I have tried going over the boundaries, but the game prevents you going out of the regular path, teaching the player NOT to explore very quickly...

A lot of missed opportunities... And it is extremely sad.

If the devs are reading this, I would gladly turn this evaluation as positive if fixes are pushed into a patch :) But for the moment, it will be a "no".

The game ultimately feels unfinished; a proof of concept with no story.
Walk to puzzle.
Program solution.
Repeat.

After doing this for a while you "win" by ending up back where you started. Epic.

It's a shame because the game does have a cool concept and the programming puzzles work well. With better pacing, a story, and some different scenery/palettes, this could have been an excellent game.

This is a great game to get introduced to simple programming logic with. If you already are proficient in it then there is still the challenge of the physics based puzzles. The combination of both is pretty unique and offers something new for fans of the puzzle genre.

A few small remarks however: I found the music a bit jarring at times, but turning the volume down helped. When it comes to user experience having to redo your solution at times can be frustrating, but I understand it is there to keep you from getting horribly stuck. Some puzzles too I feel I found an easier solution to than what was likely intended. Still, it is an indie game with a small price, so I feel this can be forgiven.

I was recently organizing my game library, and I made a category of all the games that I haven't played for a very long time, so I could play them again, and see how I liked them. If you want to see more in this review series, check out my Insanely Twisted Shadow Planet Review.

I bought this game when it was first released into early access. It looked like a promising idea, but I have been wrong on that before, so I was wary of this game being updated. To be honest, it wasn't the best when I first got it. I played for about an half an hour before I finished everything the game had to offer, then I just kindof forgot about it. When I found it again, it was updated and out of early access, and it opened up to a whole new menu. I played just the "Story" mode, which isn't much of a story, but does have a great soundtrack and gameplay. It does have a small learning curve, which I actually like in most games, so it didn't turn me off from it. I overall love this game in it's current state, and I hope the devs keep up the good work, and keep updating it!

tl;dr I like this game as it is now, and I also love the soundtrack.

Pros:
+ Great Soundtrack
+ Love the "Reprogrammable Blocks"
+ New and innovative idea

Cons:
- Almost no story
- Small learning curve

8/10

[EDIT: Changed my grammar.]

Really enjoyed this game overall! It took me around 4 hours to complete story mode; however, take that with a grain of salt, I'm a CS student and I was frsutrated by some of the earlier levls and how the game tried to limit some of what you could do. I'd much prefered more freedom but harder challenges. It sucked to have to solve a certain puzzle through only a single veiw point. Also the game itself is definitely buggy, like in some of the earlier levels I broke stuff and had to restart, and multiple times I would get stuck in an infinite falling loop because it kept respawning me not on an actual plane so that's kind of annoying. Also it's somewhat frsutrating because their character controller is clearly capsule shaped, making balancing on skinnier surfaces annoying as you tend to slide off. But I loved the last 5-6 levels so much, I was laughing and smiling as I raced through puzzles and really loved that. So I'd love to see a longer more complex story/challenge mode and perhaps more bug fixes, so keep that in mind and try to be patient with the game. Even with all that I'd still recommend it!

If you like puzzle games like Portal or Quantum Conundrum, then buy this game.

It's a great premise and well executed. The full version, which was released a couple of weeks ago, has greatly expanded on the promise of the early access versions.

There's no story to speak of, just pure puzzles within the 'object manipulation' environment. Very enjoyable.

Very easy to learn logic system. Great for beginers and beautiful graphics. The path can get confusing so alway check above and below to make sure where you are trying to go. Can't wait to finish the game.

Good game. It's a bit short (but understandable considering it's still early access) but I loved playing it.

I figured the puzzles out quicker than I thought I would, and learned a few things about coding as well. Worth buying in my opinion. Hopefully more puzzles will be added in the future.

It's a game about manupulating the world through a simple code-based editor that's easy to use and fun to mess around with.

Pros:
-Simplistic Graphics leaves the place looking like a digitized world suspended in space.
-Game runs pretty well, even on an outdated computer like mine.
-Level design leads you shooting through space and overcoming many obstacles.
-Contains a Legacy Mode which has most of the old content recreated in a new style.

Cons:
-Small amount of bugs, such as weird selection issues with the connections, and a button in legacy mode that breaks all others.

I have been looking at this project for awhile, and it's come along faster than anticipated. It's an amazing concept and execution. It has a decent amount of content for a new(2 days ago) build.

Well... This is a difficult game to review. I have very mixed feelings about it. The concept is very good, and the game was very well thought out and put together. The problem is, it's not finished. If they ever finish it it has the potential to be a very popular game, but as it is they haven't put out a new update in a LOOONG time. As it is it's still in beta. So if this game goes on sale for like 7 bucks or less, I'd say get it. But at the full price, it's not worth it.

The Good

The Bad

The Ugly

This game is wonderfully inventive. And considering this is an early release it has been flawless gameplay for me so far.

As a fan of puzzle games and a programmer I love blend of elements that have gone into this game. It is a whole new way of viewing your environment as a playground and really lets you go through the trial and error that takes place when learning logic.

I absolutely cannot wait to get more gametime in and for the full release.

I played this with my 8 year old son, and it inadvertently turned into a great trial and error programming/math lesson for my son. Near the end, I was even able to teach him about vector operations, object translation, scaling, rotation and other cool stuff. The story mode is really short though...maybe to be expected for $7, but I love the teaching potential of this game. Like SpaceChem it's one of the few games out there that has successfully gamified programming.

In its early stages, but a really interesting and surprisingly fun concept. The programing is introduced in stages that make it easy to learn and is designed really well for teaching new concepts. The music is also very relaxing and the whole game has a contemplative leasurely tone to it that I really enjoyed.

Coming back to this after the alpha 2.0 was night and day. Glitchspace is no longer a simple teaching tool, but is starting to become it's own full fledged game. I have only had the chance to play the tutorial levels and so far they have a good learning curve and do a great job of teaching not telling the player how things work.

The new design and graphics for Glitchspace is nearly night and day to the pre-alpha 2.

---
Pre Alpha 2.0:

As a programmer this was pretty basic, but for a teaching tool, this is very good. I know that it's currently in alpha, and i hope to see where this idea will go.