Okay, it's not hard to work out which game series serves an inspiration for the first-person puzzling of ChromaGun, but Pixel Maniacs' indie hit looks to be more than another Portal wannabe. The big central mechanic is your titular weapon, which can fire bursts of red, blue and yellow paint. It's all about using your artistic ammunition to solve environmental puzzles in a series of test lab chambers, while a disembodied voice narrates (and occasionally derides) your progress.
Okay, so it's a very familiar concept, but being able to mix those primary colours into more shades adds even more depth to conundrum solving, as does using your paint-splurging peashooter to control the WorkerDroids that populate many of the test chambers. It's a feedback loop that looks like a perfect fit for Switch, and it's hitting European and North American eShops on 22nd January.
It's certainly a tad derivative, but it's still an exciting new addition to Switch's indie library. Will you be grabbing your ChromaGun in a few weeks time? Drop us a comment or two...
[source youtube.com]
Comments 30
The influence is strong in this one.
I enjoyed the other knockoff to portal. I think it’s called Quantum conundrum. I’ll give this a look if it gets favorable reviews.
Coming 2016.
Unless it's on Switch.
I can't tell the difference in some colours, so this is a non-starter for me.
They posted a Switch trailer this morning. It was fairly strange.
ChromaGun Nintendo Switch Trailer
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oe55MXvALDU
Looks good. Until Valve ("We don't make games, we make money") commits to another Portal, I have no problem supporting this. Looks like a clever evolution of the series.
@SLIGEACH_EIRE At app. :16 of the video, it literally says "imagine cake."
It could be interesting, but I’m still annoyed at how closely it’s ripping off portal. I’d much rather have the portal series on my switch. Especially for that price.
If it reviews well, and hits at a decent price, I'll snatch it up. I enjoy first person puzzlers and quite enjoy the portal series.
EDIT: Watched the trailer. Sign me up. Looks fun.
@AG_Awesome - QUBE is also pretty good too.
@Muddy_4_Ever To be fair, the ideal business model for any corporation is to be in a position where they make money doing nothing, or as close to nothing as possible.
As for the game itself, meh. It does nothing to appeal to me and I loved Portal. Just looks bad to be honest.
@AG_Awesome Quantum Conundrum was actually designed and made by the person who created Portal, Kim Swift.
Yeah, I instantly got a Portal vibe until I read more into this game.
I like the Switch trailer @SLIGEACH_EIRE posted much more than the article one. At first I was annoyed by how much it aped Portal, but this second trailer wears that on its sleeve and shows that the guy has a different type of personality. Also, the game mechanics seem very different and maybe even interesting.
I still haven't played through Portal 2 yet, though, so...
@Muddy_4_Ever
Nothing wrong with that, I often imagine cake, gets me through the day, unfortunately the imagining is usually better than the indulging.
The Switch trailer is so much better. But the gameplay doesn't look interesting at all.
Can we just have a portal 1 and 2 port? Please?
I don’t know. It just looks like a Portal clone.
Looks like the kind of game I'd absolutely love!
Really sucks that I suffer from monochromacy 😭
If it's as good as Aperture Tag, sure, why not?
I actually wish there were more games like Portal and Aperture Tag.
@Judas_Krimson Nope. For it to be a Portal clone it would have to actually have portals in it.
The trailer (not the one in the article, but the one posted by @SLIGEACH_EIRE) also adresses the fact that it's similar to Portal.
For trying to capitalize on the success of one of my favorite games, it really needs to be almost as good to win my interest. The only thing that they seems deliberately different are the puzzle mechanics, which don’t look anywhere near as interesting. And I doubt that the humor even comes close. Cut the price in half, and I might give it a try. Or better yet just give us Portal and Portal 2 on Switch. I’d double dip on day 1 at twice the price for either of those.
At the end of the Switch trailer: "We are not affiliated with A*****e Science, but would tottaly like to be". Hey, if you are going to steal an idea, at least acknowledge it right
I don't know if this makes me something of a hypocrite, since I am looking forward to Wargroove so much, but there is inspiration, and there is copy or rip off. This looks like the latter.
@shani I meant a Portal clone with color changing mechanics instead of portals.
@Judas_Krimson Hm but you have to admit that it's not a clone if the core element is exchanged for something else?
I mean, don't you see it yourself? If you're shooting paint instead of portals, it's a different game.
Otherwise Aperture Tag (which started as a mod but was officially approved for sale by Valve) would also be a clone. But it isn't, because despite the similarities (and even using the same engine and most of Portal's assets) its core gameplay is different.
I'm not saying Chromagun isn't very similar to Portal, it definitely is (just like Aperture Tag). But it's definitely not a clone since a clone would have to be (basically) the same game.
Because that's what 'clone' means, or more precisely (but we don't need to be that precise), it would even mean that it's identical.
...Looks boring.
@Joeynator3000 So does Portal if you only see the first few rooms
Could be fun, but we need the original Portals too!
@shani ok in specific is not a clone, but still, the game takes place in a facility, the protagonist is part of an experiment, there’s a mysterious voice throughout the game, it has too much things in common with Portal, for me it’s a clone in terms of setting, so I rather prefer playing Portal 2 again
@Judas_Krimson Have you seen the other trailer? All those things were adressed there. At the end the text even says 'We are not affiliated with Aperture sience, but would totally like to be'. At least they're adressing it head-on and taking it self-ironically.
For the alternative you proposed: No thanks, I've already played Portal 2 twice, no point in playing it again (although it is a masterpiece).
I'd much rather play any new game that's similar to Portal 2 than wasting my time with replaying something I already know.
Besides, Chromagun seems to be different enough from Portal 2 for me.
If it was more different, it probably wouldn't interest me anyway, because for years I've been desperately looking for a new game (after Aperture Tag) that scratches the Portal itch and this is it.
It's all Valve's fault anyway. If they'd just released Portal 3, 4 and 5, we wouldn't even be having this discussion.
After seeing this I'd also love to finally see the team-based online multiplayer mode released as a separate game:
https://youtu.be/5e14kuSVDm4?t=3m19s
@shani Yes I’ve seen it and I keep believing it’s just a portal clone😆
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