The Turing Test

A really good and fun puzzle game that scratches the itch that Portal leaves behind after playing of wanting playing more games similar to it. I wish there was a sequel to it.

As boring as comparing every first-person puzzler to Portal gets, the clean aesthetic & conversive AI do make for an obvious comparison still. I certainly am not complaining, being stuck on a deep space station filled with puzzles (with an in-game justification for those) provides for a nice backdrop for enjoyable puzzles. The kind that feels like an intricate machine you can understand. There's also some timed elements impossible to do on a gamepad so I switched to KBM. If the name's not telling, there is philosophy in this game. Some pretty good stuff there, that is genuinely relevant in the modern day & age.

A very interesting PORTAL-like puzzle game with Sci-Fi and Philosophical tones. Half puzzler, half First Person Explorer. If you like/liked PORTAL and The Talos Principle (and their sequels), I'd DEFINITELY recommend this!

Surprisingly good Portal-like, I would go as far as say it's one of the better ones. Don't even remember where i got it (probably a humble bundle) but I'm very happy i played it. Instead of portals you have a gun that shoots or collects balls of energy that can power various machines in certain ways (some with constant power, some that goes off on a timer and so on). You are on a research base on Europa (the moon) and like portal you progress through various rooms with different puzzles that use the mechanics in increasingly complex ways, and with a overarching narrative between you and the base AI as you traverse throug the base looking for the scientists. More philosophical than humorous and while It starts out fairly straight forward, then half way through it throws you a curve ball and not the one I was expecting. Well played game. Completion is just playing the game and doing the optional puzzle rooms. There are a chapter selection so, you can save them for last if you want (but apart from one that you kind of need a bit of competer logic knowledge) they are not especially hard. The weird thing is that the first of these puzzle room can't really be done when you first find it since brute forcing it would take too much time realisticly. It's only later that you find the solution in a later chapter (unless i missed something), a little weird game design since everything else in a contained puzzle where you don't need (and can't even) bring something from a previous room.

An excellent puzzle game with an equally excellent story. It's on a similar level to SOMA with the ethical questions it poses and forces you to think about, but does it in a way that is not overwhelming. It also has by far the coolest and most creative fourth wall break I've ever seen in a game (optional room 2.) I would describe the puzzles as slightly more difficult than those found in the Portal games, but still very solvable. I would expect a first playthrough to take between 5-10 hours depending on how quickly you solve them.

Challenging but fair puzzles and an interesting story. Fully recommended.

We are playing as Ava Turing, space engineer awakened by the station's AI Tom from her long sleep on an orbital station near Jupiter's moon Europa, in a task of contacting the ground team on Europa which has gone silent for some considerable time. As we take steps into the ground station we are met with a series of tests that only the human mind can solve, as stated by Tom, and which are supposed to protect the crew from… Tom? As we navigate through the station we get to learn more about the research undergoing on Europa, the members of the team and ourselves. Complex questions considering humanity rise up and finding an answer for them is gonna be a challenge… oh yeah. As for gameplay I would say it's like [i]Portal[/i] but without the portals... and danger. All we have is a "weapon" that can store energy balls, with it we can transfer these balls and power up closed doors, inactive bridges or platforms. As we progress new mechanics are presented and with them the rooms become more complex. I was rather surprised how well I was able to cope with it, I usually struggle in such games. Most of the levels are pretty straightforward, you overlook the room and see the solution, but few of them were pretty challenging and required a bit of outside the box thinking. Little bit problematic were mostly "timed" sequences where you needed to be quick and precise. I would say that [i]Portal[/i] was harder, although it has been some years since I played it last. As for the story, well, that's a hard nut to crack. I am gonna admit that I was pretty lost in the [i]Turing test[/i] and [i]Chinese room[/i] talks and I am not sure what exactly the ending was supposed to prove in that aspect… If we look aside from the talks about AI we can learn more about the crew and their lives on Europe prior to our awakening from audio logs, notes or emails. All of these draw a pretty clear picture of what has happened on the station. And yet our heroine seems to ignore all of these "hints" and acts completely in the opposite way. I was truly baffled from this development. I don't want to spoil you, but the ending is very, very much unsatisfying. I don't see any sense in it. Also, no one else finds it strange that five people are living in an extremely huge station that allows building over 70 puzzle rooms? Weird that they had so many resources in a such limited environment. o_O My biggest complaint (aside from the story) goes to missing subtitles during audio logs. It wouldn't exactly be a problem if you can actually hear what they are saying, which is pretty hard with all the static sounds, hushed voices and so on. Huge oversight from the developers. Otherwise I haven't encountered any problems or bugs. Even though I said that it was somewhat easier than [i]Porta[/i]l, I am glad it wasn't much difficult and I rather enjoyed the puzzles. Just don't play it for the story.