There comes a time every now and then where someone will put out a game and have it act as more of a vessel to tell a specific narrative. Only, the story is largely a meandering, plodding mess of jumbled thoughts. Sure that might have been the point of Another Perspective, but it makes for bad storytelling when paired with average puzzles.

The gameplay is typical puzzle platforming, with your avatar being able to jump and move about, collecting keys to open doors. Of course, in order to make it more interesting, the obstacles come in the form of figuring out how to collect the keys or getting to the doors. This is done by being able to switch perspectives with your other ‘selves’. Normally they are greyed out and inert, and are able to be used as stepping stones or platforms. This is because whenever they aren’t in play, they will freeze frame in the location you put them at before you switched. Need to get higher? Have one self jump then switch to the other to make them the next platform for the previous self to use. The game is very short, and it doesn’t take too long to solve any of the rooms, although if you get stuck, you can reset the room.

And that’s pretty much all there is too the game. The narrative is mostly just a string of incoherent or irrelevant thoughts from your avatar. It seems that ultimately it’s a story of the protagonist realizing he’s a game character who has no agency. Only the game thinks it revealed this to the player in a unique way. It’s not really all that clever to point out the very thing you are trying to convey through gameplay and subtle hints. No need to directly point it out. Adding to the blandness, the game lacks a large sound track, pretty much only playing one or two tracks throughout the entire 2 hours it can take you to get through the game. The background is also bland, blank negative space, bereft of any kind of theme: Unless the developers intent was for it to be representative of isolation. This doesn’t make for interesting visuals though. Sprites are serviceable at least. Issues with the gameplay stem from character movement being a little slower than it should have been, and the max jump height never seems to be quite adequate, not allowing much leeway for clever jumping. There is gamepad support for the Xbox 360 controller at least. But honestly, this game is ultimately a mediocre experience despite some of the cleverness in some of the puzzle rooms. Even at a 6 dollar price point, it would be better to wait for a sale. Otherwise give this one a pass.

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