Quantum Conundrum

Lore & Background

The silent player-protagonist is the twelve-year-old nephew of the highly intelligent but somewhat eccentric Professor Fitz Quadwrangle (voiced by John de Lancie). He is sent to stay with Quadwrangle, who is unprepared for his arrival as he is working on an experiment. The experiment goes awry, trapping Quadwrangle in a pocket dimension with memory loss, but he can watch and communicate with the protagonist. The results leave portions of the mansion in flux between four dimensions with alternate properties. Quadwrangle guides the protagonist to acquire a glove that can tame these fluxes, allowing safe travel through rooms to restart three power generators, which Quadwrangle believes will free him. The protagonist also gains help from IKE (Interdimensional Kinetic Entity), a small alien pet. After starting the three generators, the house shakes, and Quadwrangle realizes a fourth generator must be started. The protagonist activates it, but Quadwrangle remembers too late that restarting it nearly killed him before. The house shakes violently, and Quadwrangle instructs his nephew to safety in the pocket dimension while he works to resolve the problems of the half-ruined mansion affecting the entire planet.

Gameplay is a puzzle-platformer viewed from the first-person perspective. The player can run, jump, interact with switches, and lift light objects. Death can occur from toxic liquids, bottomless pits, high falls, or destructive lasers, restarting the player at the start of a puzzle or checkpoint. Most puzzles require manipulating the room and objects using four dimensions: Fluffy (objects ten times lighter), Heavy (objects ten times heavier, immune to lasers), Slow (time crawls to ten times slower, player moves normally), and Reverse Gravity (gravity reversed, player unaffected). Only one dimension can be accessed at a time; when switched, objects retain position and velocity. Initially the player cannot control dimension shifts, but later gains the Interdimensional Shift Device glove, allowing switching if a battery for that dimension is placed in a power receptacle. Players may need to find batteries or choose which to insert.

Reader's Guide

Quantum Conundrum was developed by Airtight Games, directed by Kim Swift, who was one of the developers of Portal and helped develop Left 4 Dead 2. She conceived the general concept during a trip to a local bakery. During early Portal 2 development, she approached Airtight Games with the idea; they saw it as a means to expand their portfolio for a broader audience and offered her a position. Swift departed Valve for Airtight in late 2009. She initially worked on a project that was cancelled after about eight months; work on Quantum Conundrum began in the second quarter of 2010, with publisher efforts starting in following months. Swift's goal was to create a title with broad appeal that remained challenging to hardcore players. She worked to distance the concept from Portal to avoid direct comparisons. At Airtight, she worked democratically with a small team of about sixteen people. The first two dimensions programmed were Fluffy and Slow; others were brainstormed and tested before final selection. Weekly playtests were done at Airtight and by Square Enix. The art style used skewed angles and curved surfaces to guide the player's eye, with lighting and shadows highlighting features. The soundtrack was composed and performed by Chris Ballew of The Presidents of the United States of America. Two downloadable content packs were announced: 'The Desmond Debacle' (released July/August 2012) and 'IKE-aramba!' (released a month later).

Did You Know?

• The game was directed by Kim Swift, lead designer of Portal.
• Professor Fitz Quadwrangle is voiced by John de Lancie.
• The four dimensions are Fluffy, Heavy, Slow, and Reverse Gravity.