Filmechanism

Have you ever listened to a song you know you've heard before, but you can't quite put your finger on where? That's how I felt the entire time I played Filmechanism, the new puzzle game from first-time developer Chemical Pudding. It has one of those simple conceits that feels so familiar that I know for a fact that I've seen it somewhere else, yet, no matter how long I played, I couldn't figure out where I had seen it before. Did that ruin my enjoyment of this simple yet addicting puzzler? I guess you'll have to find out when I review Filmechanism.

This is the story of a one-eyed, green-skinned camera humanoid named Rec who loves taking pictures. In fact, he just arrived on a new star system with the goal of taking lots of snapshots. But his fun is cut short when he accidentally loses his gold film, setting him on a brain-busting adventure where the goal is to solve more than two-hundred puzzles and retrieve the gold film once and for all.

Rec's power is simple: He's able to take pictures of how things were and then revert things back to that moment in time. That means that if he takes a picture before he makes a bunch of changes to the level, he'll be able to undo all of that and see the level how it used to be. The benefit of this is that he's not included in the snapshot, allowing him to use the reversal of time to get on the other side of boxes and solve all sorts of seemingly impossible challenges.

The trick is that you're limited in pictures you can take. Rec won't be able to do much of anything until he grabs the green film, which will allow him to take (and use) a single picture. Some of the more advanced puzzles will have our alien friend grabbing blue and red film, allowing for up to three snapshots. This means that you'll need to carefully consider where and when to snap the picture and cycle between the different save states. This is one of those games that starts out incredibly easy, only to ramp up the difficulty with longer and more complicated stages.

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For the most part, the action plays out like a typical 8-bit platformer. A lot of the puzzles revolve around the idea of picking up a key in order to open a locked door, which will ultimately give you access to the exit flag. Beyond that, most of the items and obstacles will be familiar to anybody who has played an old school platformer, right down to the bouncy pads, falling objects and spike pits. There are also disappearing platforms, levers that open doors, one-way electrical fields, push carts and a few other obstacles that will help mix up the later stages. I like how each of the six worlds introduce a new wrinkle to the concept and then innovates on that idea.

That said, no matter how many obstacles the game throws at you, I couldn't shake the idea that most of the puzzles are solved in the exact same way. I suspect the issue is that the central picture-taking conceit is a bit limiting, making it surprisingly obvious when and where to take each photograph. So many of the puzzles can be solved by simply getting on the other side of the boxes. The harder levels are certainly more challenging, but they rarely stray far from the usual solutions. Once you've learned the basics, you'll be able to solve eighty percent of the puzzles without any mental strain.

I couldn't help but feel like the gimmick needed an extra layer. Perhaps instead of just taking pictures, Rec could record two or three seconds of video, which you could use to solve puzzles. Or maybe some film was black and white, creating new types of objects. Those are just ideas off the top of my head, but my point is that the central conceit needed a little more fleshing out to keep it from becoming repetitive. There are so many cool ways you can use and manipulate film, and it's frustrating that this game barely scratches the surface of what is possible.

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What it lacks in depth, Filmechanism more than makes up for it with content. There are more than two-hundred puzzles to solve, which will take some real doing to complete. I like how each world has different paths for the Normal, Hard and Hell difficulties, allowing you to choose between several puzzles with every step. Even the Normal path is surprisingly long, with 77 stages standing between you and the golden film.

I also like the throwback look and cute character design. This is a game that looks and feels like it could have been a long-lost platformer from the 1980s that is only coming to America for the first time. That said, I wish the backgrounds and stages were a bit more varied. Thanks to the repeating obstacles and platforms, you probably won't even notice the subtle changes to the background. That's a shame, but not enough of a problem to keep you from feeling a real sense of satisfaction every time you beat one of the stages. And it's that feeling that makes me give Filmechanism a tepid recommendation.