Neon Cipher is a brisk, brain-teasing puzzle platformer that blends first-person immersion with third-person platforming.
Your journey begins after being dropped right into a sequence of fraught our on-line world mazes filled with robotic sentries and geometric obstacles to combat, evade, and escape. You management an avatar within the sport area and manipulate the surroundings and its enemies utilizing hands-on controls from a first-person perspective.
It’s a classy and ultra-minimalist mashup of the VR basic Moss, and historical PlayStation relics like Clever Qube and Echochrome.
What’s it?: A geometrical puzzle-platformer performed by way of first and third-person controls.
Platforms: PC VR, Meta Quest (Reviewed on Quest 3S)
Launch Date: Out now
Developer: eXomorph Video games
Value: $19.99
The plot of Neon Cipher is gentle, and what’s right here isn’t groundbreaking, nevertheless it units the tone and establishes the sport world. You play as a hacker who’s been recruited by the mysterious Captain S. Ren, a member of a digital revolt. The purpose is to hack into XE_Corp’s digital archive to retrieve… one thing. I am unable to actually recall, as a result of the plot is so sparse that it’s merely not very memorable. On the flipside, it is not distracting, both.
Extra vital are the sport’s mechanics, that are easy and efficient. Throughout fifty transient puzzle levels, the participant should navigate their in-game avatar via the various three-dimensional geometric mazes to acquire a set variety of keys scattered all through the surroundings. The avatar is managed by way of the sport controller’s analog sticks and buttons in a standard third-person trend.
The acquisition of the keys isn’t an easy proposition. Typically, they’re positioned in awkward areas which should be navigated to with pinpoint correct platforming and by manipulating platforms and objects within the surroundings. You do that with the sport controller by bodily reaching out, grabbing maintain of the platform or object, and dragging it the place we would like it to go.
Gameplay captured by UploadVR on Quest 3S
The manipulable objects are rendered within the monochrome sport area in shades of blue and crimson. We are able to pull or push blue platforms out of niches in a wall, as an example, to create a makeshift stairway or carry our avatar right here and there. Reaching out and grabbing maintain of those platforms may be carried out with both hand, and the method feels intuitive and easy.
Automated shifting crimson platforms and different objects may be activated by hand switches or by inserting weighted blocks positioned on stress switches.
Whereas each mechanics work effectively sufficient, they’ll sometimes really feel too apparent. For instance, many of the blue movable platforms merely run on a predetermined observe. We are able to slide a block left or proper or up or down, however not wherever we like. This limitation retains the participant from simply grabbing a block, inserting our avatar onto it, and zipping them across the sport world freely. Nonetheless, the truth that every block has a form of predestined path signifies that the answer to each puzzle is just sliding some blocks this fashion after which that. On this manner, the platforming puzzles do not at all times really feel like puzzles, extra like a sequence of duties to finish.
The sport’s puzzles naturally develop into extra difficult as the sport progresses, with later levels being completely full of crimson and blue interactable puzzle objects and loads of enemies to stun, dodge, and assault. However Neon Cipher may very well be a bit more difficult, and I would not complain.
Neon Cipher’s controls are tight, and the platforming is satisfying and constant. We don’t undergo inscrutable physics or slog via irritating views. There’s no conventional digicam to regulate, we merely view the world in first individual and transfer ourselves bodily to realize a greater view. There are additionally no odd distances to evaluate, or extraneous complicated components, and there isn’t any fall harm.
As soon as we’ve labored our avatar via the maze and picked up all the required keys, the stage door opens, permitting our avatar to flee the stage and transfer on to the following. However that is simpler mentioned than carried out; the keys are guarded by enemies. These enemy bots try to destroy the participant character by way of melee or ranged assaults, which should be prevented or countered.
We have now just a few strategies of counterattack accessible to us. The primary is a straightforward melee assault. By urgent the A button, our little electrical avatar can ship a weak punch. Punch an enemy just a few occasions, and it’ll dissolve completely. We are able to additionally bodily attain out with the VR controller and seize the enemy bots with a press of the set off. This briefly stun-locks the enemy behind a vector pressure subject, permitting our avatar within the sport world to both circumvent or assault the enemy freely. Lastly, it’s potential to make use of the surroundings’s movable objects to squish the enemy bots.
Gameplay captured by UploadVR on Quest 3S
Whereas these actions may be moderately described as “fight,” you shouldn’t count on complexity or sophistication. Our bot has one transfer that is gradual and ineffective. Although the flexibility to succeed in out and stun our enemies with the controllers earlier than delivering a few melee assaults sounds dynamic and attention-grabbing, the truth is that fight is much from participating.
Most of the time, clearing a stage devolves merely into wiggling round a bit, avoiding the enemy’s ranged assaults, and scampering away with a key. It is simply not very thrilling, and this turns into much more apparent after we notice that defeating all of the bots on a stage isn’t a requirement for development. If we will evade the enemies and seize all of the keys, the door opens, and we nonetheless win.
However I am nitpicking, only a bit. What’s right here is okay, I solely want the puzzles have been a bit harder on the mind, and the fight a bit extra demanding of the reflexes.
Enjoying Neon Cipher nearly turns into meditative at occasions. Regardless of the potential stress of failure and the calmly taxing psychological exertion, the sport’s ethereal surroundings and moody ambient soundtrack sneakily lulls you right into a state of calm. After 20 or 40 minutes of enjoying, I really feel extra centered, one way or the other.
Gameplay captured by UploadVR on Quest 3S
Neon Cipher makes use of the controller’s analog stick for shifting the avatar within the sport area, and the headset for first-person digicam work. There isn’t a actual motion requirement, and the sport may be performed sitting or standing.
Past the primary marketing campaign of fifty puzzles, Neon Cipher additionally features a pretty complete stage creator. Customized mazes are constructed utilizing pre-made blocks and objects, which may be positioned anyplace within the 3D area. Whereas there’s at the moment no technique to add customized maps, the developer hopes to implement this in future updates, or that maps may be shared manually by way of the studio’s Discord server.
Neon Cipher Evaluate – Last Verdict
Neon Cipher started life as a faculty venture developed throughout a three-month interval. Upon commencement, eXomorph Video games’ studio head, Jon Bogert, expanded the sport to its present type for this launch, and it is an pleasant debut from a brand new developer. It will not be as lush or expansive as comparable third-person/first-person puzzle platformers reminiscent of Moss, nevertheless it’s a enjoyable albeit simplified instance of the style’s extra attention-grabbing concepts.
UploadVR makes use of a 5-Star ranking system for our sport critiques – you may learn a breakdown of every star ranking in our overview tips.
