It's very hard to find a flaw in The Swapper because what it does, it does very well. It does very little, in some sense, but as a puzzle-platformer, I loved it. It felt like one of those games where you could add enemies and a health bar and you would have a full-on metroidvania but instead you have nice puzzles playing around with creating clones and warping to them with an interesting story and simple controls.

Playing as some guy in a spacesuit, you walk around a space station with a gun that shoots clones or 'swaps' you with one of your clones. There are a few rules, of course, you can't shoot clones through blue light, you can't swap through red light. You die pretty easily, but death can be prevented by shooting clones around and swapping into them - time slows down when you're doing so. Time only slows down when you're creating a clone, not when you're aiming to swap into one, maybe that would've been helpful?

Otherwise, you solve a bunch of puzzles to get orbs that allow you to go forward in the game. These puzzles are the meat of the game and they require some thinking as to where and how you can shoot clones, step on switches, move boxes, and all that. On the plus side, the game is very forgiving about failure, there are lights you can move under to destroy your clones and if you fall from too high, there's always the space bar to reset the room. On the other side, the clone gun is a bit finicky sometime, especially at weird angles. It should be more clear where you can shoot clones and where you can't at a glance.

In any case, if you like puzzle platformers with weird mechanics, try The Swapper, it's pretty great and fairly straightforward. I know I enjoyed it.

Posted
AuthorJérémie Tessier