Hazard - The Journey Of Life Demo

In order to make puzzle games appealing, developers need to both get the players interested and make the experience fun at the same time, while still providing them with a decent challenge. Hence, it’s way more difficult than coming up with some riddles, because the level design is of capital importance as well, especially if the puzzles in question require exploration.

Hazard - The Journey Of Life (which was later renamed Antichamber by the developers) is an exploration puzzle game, in which your main purpose is to try and find your way through a very interesting world. Naturally, there are some other kinds of puzzles you need to tackle as well, some of which require a bit more thinking than simply walking around until you stumble into the right path.

As such, the game feels a lot like Portal in some cases, but that is only because Portal made this particular genre so popular. In other words, it barely has anything to do with Valve’s production, since the entire thing is very different. In essence, you have to explore a non-Euclidian space and try to make sense of the path ahead, although that can prove to be extremely tricky when nothing’s as it seems.

Thus, doors can appear out of nowhere, paths can lead to the same spot over and over again, while entire walls can just disintegrate in a matter of seconds. On the other hand, you are equipped with a special device that allows you to bring raw matter into existence, so everything evens out in the end. Sure, it’s still not easy, but you at least have something to count on when nothing else seems to make sense.

From a visual point of view, the game’s graphics are unique to say the least. You’ll rarely come across such wild display of color and shapes, especially since there are no limits to how wild it can get. The fact that the game uses Unreal Engine 3 to render the environments is yet another plus, although this kind of beauty is different from what you might have seen in Unreal Tournament.

When it’s all said and done, Hazard - The Journey Of Life may not be everyone’s cup of tea, but it should be. The amount of ingenuity that went into its design and development is off the charts, which is why everyone who’s not afraid of a challenge should give it a try.