Quantum Conundrum vs. Portal game

I started playing Quantum Conundrum and I have completed some puzzles from the beginning levels of the game. After playing this game, I realized that this is similar to Portal except for the fact that Portal has two portals that we need to use and in Quantum Conundrum we have to travel between multiple dimensions to solve the puzzles. After reading on internet that the person behind the development of Portal is the same person who is part of the team which made Quantum Conundrum. The name of the person is Kim Swift. Portal and Quantum Conundrum are two such games, that we can make comparisons between them. So I would like to know from the people who have played Quantum Conundrum till the further levels, what they think about Quantum Conundrum and Portal?

The first thing that is noticed in Quantum Conundrum is the level of graphics. It is obvious that graphic quality of Quantum Conundrum is much higher than Portal. Portal had most of its environment located in a laboratory like environment and the later part of the game in an industrial area. So most of the game environment of Portal consisted of bare walls and structures with sharp edges and rectangular structures. Also the coloring scheme of Portal was dull as compared to Quantum Conundrum. In Quantum Conundrum, the game is meant to be funny and features a mad scientist. So the developers have tried to make it as much colorful as possible. Also we have to switch from one dimension to another, so this again changes color scheme for every dimension. For Example, the fluffy dimension has everything in white color like cotton. Also to make the things look funnier and out of reality, everything has a touch of smoothness. Even the safe which we have to use has a cartoonish look. So in short, Postal focused its graphics more on realism while in Quantum Conundrum developers have tried to make it look bit cartoonish.

The gameplay of Quantum Conundrum requires more thinking than Portal. I found Portal much easier than Quantum Conundrum. This must be because; Portal has only two things to use, orange portal and the Blue Portal. With combination of these two portals we needed to solve the puzzles. Thus, we knew whatever happens; we have to just apply these two powers to achieve our objective. Also the two powers of Portal were one and the same, the orange portal and the blue portal just connected each other and there was no difference among them except for color. But here in Quantum Conundrum, the puzzles become more difficult as we are given 4 dimensions to use. Now having to select and switch among 4 dimensions adds more confusion and increases difficulty. So in Quantum Conundrum, its one wrong decision and your whole puzzle might get stuck. In case of Portal, you had Portals that can be opened on almost any solid walls. Thus, if we get ourselves stuck in some wrong place, just open the portal where we want to go back to and start from that point again.

I found story of Quantum Conundrum much better than that of Portal. First 75% of Portal was spent only in training of using powers. I nearly spent three hours completing the training. After which I thought that there will be more twenty to thirty more levels filled with puzzles. But after completing the training there were barely two levels to use our training and all our skills. Also the story of Portal had nothing exciting about it. All we knew was that we are a test subject who is being used to test the Portals. After completing the training we get to know that we will be killed after training ends, so all we have to do is to just escape from the research facility. But in Quantum Conundrum, we have a good story, that is, we go to our uncle’s house who is a scientist and due to a failed experiment, he gets lost. We have to search him by solving inter-dimensional travelling. Now this adds some fun in the game.

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I found story of Quantum Conundrum much better than that of Portal. First 75% of Portal was spent only in training of using powers. I nearly spent three hours completing the training. After which I thought that there will be more twenty to thirty more levels filled with puzzles.

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I too found the training part of the Portal a major turn off. The portal had basic movement controls, a single key to pickup and drop object and a single control to use the portals. The basic concept of Portal was that the object that goes into a Portal with some speed comes out with same speed. So to explain just these, developers had used 75% of game for training. They could have just explained it in one basic level and have kept the escaping part for rest of the game. But here in Quantum Conundrum, the main focus is on story about the Uncle’s rescue. When I realized that I have to escape in Portal, I thought that I will be chased by some moving targets like soldiers or robots, but there was nothing that could add threat level. Defeating the stationary sentries was easier than expected.

Come on people, Portal was first of its kind. It was a successful experiment by Valve to have some different kind of Puzzle game. This game had no other character except for our test subject and the computer who keeps giving instructions. Also designing a Puzzle is not a child’s play that you just put some rooms in random order, then put some lasers and objects to interact with. The creator of the puzzles has to put in more efforts than the person who needs to solve it. The person who solves the puzzle has to think only in one direction or maybe sometimes two. But the puzzle creator has to think in multiple directions. For example, will the designed room be sufficient to use all the features, what if the player gets stuck, then a way to comeback. He/she also has to take care that puzzles can be solved by a person with average IQ and also is enough to play for a person with normal level of reflexes. So I think that we should stop comparisons between Portal and Quantum Conundrum and just enjoy the games.

If you have noticed in Quantum Conundrum, then it has a weird field of view. It is wider than the natural camera and natural sight of humans. I think that developers have tried this to give the player view of more environments. But this has turned disadvantageous for many people who I know have played Quantum Conundrum. They give a headache and a strange feeling to the player. Also Quantum Conundrum is more of a jump based game as compared to Portal. Most of the jumps have to be precise to achieve some objective. You have to throw some object in air using Fluffy dimension and the in slow motion dimension we have to get on it and then switch back to normal dimension to fly with that object. So I think that this whole thing needs good precision and good reflexes. Portal didn’t have much of it. But anyways, I enjoyed playing Portal and now I am paying Quantum Conundrum.