Review
Glitchspace

Glitchspace has a strong concept but repetitive and simplistic puzzle solutions hold it back in it's current state.

Posted by Nate on 8 May 2014 at 12:03PM

With a gap facing you that's just a little too far away for you to jump Glitchspace requires you to hack blocks, alter their properties and manipulate them in your favour, moving them over to where you could not previously cross.

This is the gameplay focus in the game. Right clicking on a red block will bring up a menu overlay showing the current properties of the object. Any of the boxes that don't have a lock symbol in them can be deleted. On the right hand side you have a menu of different properties you can introduce; such as: numbers, maths, logic and physics. The first puzzle took me a few minutes to figure out but only because I wasn't sure what I had to do. There is no introduction or instruction and while the UI is easy to navigate once you know what's going on, it took me a little while to pick up on it.

As well as hacking these red blocks you have a tool. When in red areas you can alter the properties of it using the same method and then shoot nearby red blocks to add those properties to them. Doing it this way means you can shoot numerous red blocks rather than add the properties to them individually.

Glitchspace is not a difficult game. Once I knew what to do in order to manipulate the blocks no puzzle gave me any sort of challenge. One of the problems is that only the properties you need to add appear on the right hand side menu each time; practically giving you the solution immediately. If all the options were there you'd have to stop and think exactly what needed to be added in order to solve the problem. While this could be potentially overwhelming to some players I think it would make the game a lot more interesting.

The world in the game is not particularly interesting; seemingly just a way to present the puzzles. There is a little platforming between each block you need to manipulate but this is not much fun. The jump is imprecise; too high, too fast and you don't go that far forwards, so jumping across some gaps will lead you to plummet towards the never-ending depths several times. There is clear presentation throughout though. You won't get lost or be unsure of what you can edit thanks to the colour coded design.

Glitchspace is a puzzle game through and through. There is no context to the game; you don't know why you're there, who you are, why you're doing these things etc. At this point the puzzles are too simplistic and self-explanatory; almost all are either bridging a gap or removing an obstacle and you can reach the end of the content currently in the build after forty-five minutes. I didn't have much fun playing through it; the music was nice and the concept is strong but just not executed in a challenging, interesting or rewarding way.