The entropy centre is a first person puzzle adventure game where you have to solve a series of puzzles by rewinding time to manipulate the environment and items around you in order to generate entropy in order to power a greater time rewinding device that is used to manipulate the earth to rewind and avoid extinction level events and disasters.
You will immediately notice the influences from portal 2 especially as there are psuedo equivalents of the transition gels except in this game they come in the form of a variety of boxes which can be used to provide a variety of solutions to puzzles using similar mechanics but in a different form which can be moved around and manipulated using your handy time rewinding device.
Following inspiration from portal the game also takes place in a series of testing chambers which you have to solve in order to progress through the game however in this instance rather than a sinister AI testing you the point of solving these puzzles is to gather entropy to rewind the timeline which can only be gathered through solving puzzles and thinking, and this develops the storyline you will uncover as you play through the game.
Now although you may think it would be simple enough to rewind the environment and boxes around you to easily solve a puzzle there are a few constraints that make life more difficult, firstly being that all items can only be rewound for 38 seconds with your entropy gun (because it’d be too easy otherwise and not generate entropy) but an object not moving won’t add to it’s timer so anything rewound is based on it’s last movements in time, and you can use this to both rewind collapsed physics and also boxes you’ve moved around to reverse them on the path you’ve taken them to creatively solve the puzzles.
I enjoyed the concept of the game and the puzzles were good and did develop well over time to more challenging puzzles as more elements were introduced from bouncing pads and lazer puzzles to more complicated puzzles which involve transitioning boxes through a variety of states in order to escape the rooms.
The storyline also took a few interesting twists and turns and did have a good narrative along the way which compelled you to want to learn more and complete the game in order to discover the fate of what happens and did have a few very dramatic scenes with some well shot scenes, the game also does have a few moments where the puzzles become far more frantic as you have to complete a series of challenges whilst under threat from the station’s robotic population but these do seem a little anticlimactic at times when you’ve completed the puzzle and they just stand down and walk away (even if this does make sense if you really understand everything at the end)
From here on there will be spoilers so if you want to avoid go check the game out for yourself.
While the game is great and a lot of fun and the puzzles were good I did feel that it lacked a climactic ending on the scale of portal, because they always ended with an ultimate boss battle puzzle, however this game at the end simply involves rewinding something and standing there and this could have been made into a more challenging boss puzzle in a way where you had to within a time limit traverse around the entropy cannon and fix certain parts in an order whilst under threat from the robots as opposed to E just telling them you’ve made it here and to stop pushing you forward and creating entropy from the threat making the puzzles harder than just solving them.
Another thing which felt a bit bad about the ending is that nothing was ever truly solved and it just becomes an endless cycle of delaying until the centre itself falls apart (as it is never getting rewound and just falling apart more each cycle of time) and while the game itself never figures out what is causing the cataclysm I discovered an unintended cause of the world falling apart which the game developers may have missed, because every time they rewound the data didn’t matter and changed and this was because the entropy centre itself was causing this cataclysm as every time they rewound past life ending events only the earth gets rewound but the moon remains in it’s new point of orbit and this caused havoc on the gravity instantly jumping and essentially impacting the planet with it’s sudden gravity shift and would cause a big hit on the earth, this added up every time they rewound and eventually caused the planet to explode as it couldn’t handle the trauma of many impacts. The solution of course is to rewind the entropy centre itself so it never existed (and whilst this would essentially undo everything it’s done in the aspect of impacts on the earth and it’s gravity it wouldn’t undo saving humanity as they exist at this point and it’s a bit of a paradox but as humans exist now they’ve survived past the ele’s of the past but rewinding the centre and the moon would reverse it’s impact on the planet’s gravity and thus prevent it exploding because of this trauma) so this would work as a solution to the problem while eliminating the centre itself and the moon and would ultimately save the planet as a sacrifice to itself and would’ve worked as a good ending rather than just an endless loop, and this could have tied in with how the game ends but with a secret ending so once you’ve rewound far enough for the earth to survive you allow the entropy device to still overload and thus rewind the entire moon and the centre itself so it never existed, and this would allow the planet to be rewound enough to survive the cataclysm and then not explode.
Even though I have my own thoughts on the ending the game is a fun experience with a good storyline and the puzzles were well designed and creative and did make good use of the mechanics, and it would be interesting to see if they do design a sequel where you can ultimately break the cycle and save the planet but as a standalone game it does work well and is very recommended for people who do enjoy puzzle games like portal as it does give 8 hours of gameplay and a whole new set of puzzles to solve and an interesting storyline to experience.
Also available on steam now at The Entropy Centre on Steam (steampowered.com)