A PC review copy of the game was provided for the purposes of this review
3D Puzzle Platformers are becoming as popular among gamers as dragons are to medieval based RPGs. It’s even bled over to games like Minecraft; a game that’s essentially about digging a big hole and hiding in it however now you proceed to jump over the hole as if you’re Alan Titchmarsh on an episode of It’s a Knockout. Vitrum is the autonomous love child of the small Development team 9heads, whose other notable works include *insert blank space here*. The reason I raise this point is that while reading this review I want you to keep in mind this is their first venture into the world of gaming, and so whatever is said hereon in is merely a view on this specific game, and not the company as a whole. It would be plainly unfair to try and assess them based on their first work and so would like to extend my best wishes to all their future works.
You play an android who can use crystals, left throughout the levels like a mysterious masked jewel thief left a curious trail like Hansel and Gretel got older and became bank robbers, and their seemingly magic powers that give you the ability to change gravity, jump higher and give you a speed boost. It’s sort of like being in the factory in which superheros are made, only you were the odd one out that didn’t quite make the cut so you’re demoted to being a nobody whose only real superpower is the ability to lick anything shiny that comes across his path. It certainly is like being in a factory though; considering every single wall panel is a cut and pasted version of the last, spewed in the same monotone grey as if any individuality was punishable by death from saliva. The crystals themselves give off this kind of ominous glow, like it was meant to be some kind of new age club, except everybody cordially uninvited themselves when they realised the tongue terror monster was lurking about. It does add some colour to an otherwise uniform colour palette but if you’re not being bored to tears from the grey then you’re obviously near the radioactive crystals that glow green and therefore make the entire room look like the morning after a heroin addict wakes up from a hard night of partying. This is where I also mention that some crystals are bad for you and if you fall on them then your character gets some kind of allergic reaction that’s reminiscent of Superman and the whole Kryptonite complex, resulting in death and probable gamer rage.
There are fifty levels overall, with the last ten being unlockable by collecting little tokens throughout each little mission, with the time each one takes varying on your ability to solve the puzzles. One thing you can credit the game with is that the puzzle design is quite intricate and certainly no walk in the park when it comes to trying to solve them all. You can spend upwards of fifteen minutes just staring at the level trying to deduce the answer to solving the puzzle, and that is something you have to give them credit for.
This leads me onto my biggest issue with the game. When you play a lot of indie puzzle games there’s some kind of storyline flowing through that gives you a sense of motivation to complete the puzzle you are troubled with; this is coming from someone whose only motivation to get out of bed in the morning is that it will eventually result in caffeine and a nice trip back into the realm of my duvet a few hours later. Vitrum itself lacks this storyline content, and by lacks I mean physically does nothing to produce one. The only reason I know you’re an android is I had to look on the game’s website itself, although now knowing that you’re basically playing a computer program in a computer program as a computer program is a slightly sad outlook on my life. Due to this lack of story you find yourself disinterested in completing difficult puzzles and can easily get distracted or just plain bored. To put it in another way, it’s the only puzzle game that I’ve actually felt I’ve had to grind through, as opposed to be intellectually challenged to persist.
As a small disclaimer, I know earlier I mentioned that you have to give them credit for the difficult puzzle design, however when I think about it, that’s really just a cloud’s silver lining. They may have done a good job on designing intricate puzzles, but you can find yourself more motivated to read the entire contents of the English Oxford Dictionary than actually wanting to complete this game. There is, however, very little else to talk about; with each level simply being a more difficult version of the last, very little else changes from level one through to fifty – the theory of evolution could be expected to make more drastic changes quicker than Vitrum.
I don’t want to be the mean reviewer that pokes new developers with a stick to check if they’re actually alive, but speaking strictly on this game it’s completely and utterly average. By no means is it bad, but calling it good would be somewhat of an injustice to other games that are quite simply better. Sincerely, I wish the guys over at 9heads had decided to make this game free-to-play and used the publicity they’d of received from that to venture on to their next game. Vitrum isn’t a particularly expensive game, (sitting a little over £3 on today’s exchange rate) but if you consider that for £3 you could instead get The Basement Collection; which is a definitive indie superpower, the two aren’t comparable in any way, shape or form. If you wish to help the guys out on what could be a promising next release, then feel free to consider the money a donation to their cause, but other than that it’s hard to justify buying this game.
And let me tell you this, going through that entire review without one reference to Portal was about as difficult as trying to fight deadly neurotoxins.
Virtum is currently available to purchase directry through the Developer’s Website.