The Swapper

🗃️ Specifications

📰 Title:	The Swapper	🕹️ / 🛠️ Type:	Game
🗃️ Genre:	Adventure & Action	👁️ Visual:	2D Scrolling
🏷️ Category:	Adventure & Action ➤ Puzzle ➤ Puzzle Platformer	🏝️ Perspective:	Side view
🔖 Tags:	Puzzle Platformer; Action; Adventure; Exploration; Sci-fi; Metroidvania; Mystery; Space; Horror; Psychological Horror; Female Protagonist; Story Rich; Atmospheric; Difficult; Level Editor; Controller	⏱️ Pacing:	Real Time
🐣️ Approx. start:	2013-05-13	👫️ Played:	Single
🐓️ Latest:	2014-02-18	🚦 Status:	04. Released (status)
📍️ Version:	Latest: 1.16	❤️ Like it:	9. ⏳️
🏛️ License type:	💰 Commercial	🎀️ Quality:	7. ⏳️
🏛️ License:	Commercial	✨️ (temporary):
🐛️ Created:	2015-01-09	🐜️ Updated:	2024-06-22

🚦 Entry status

📰 What's new?:		👻️ Temporary:
💡 Lights on:		🎨️ Significant improvement:
👔️ Already shown:		💭️ New version published (to be updated):
🎖️ This work:		🚧️ Some work remains to be done:
👫️ Contrib.:	goupildb & Louis	🦺️ Work in progress:
🎰️ ID:	14529

📖️ Summary

📜️[en]:	An atmospheric puzzle platformer set in the furthest reaches of space. Players wield an experimental device able to clone the user and swap control between them. Dropped into a character and world as mysterious as the workings of the device itself, The Swapper is a game of exploration of a very personal nature.	📜️[fr]:	Un jeu de plateformes et de réflexion dont l'action se situe dans les coins les plus reculés de l'espace, et dont la particularité est que le joueur est en mesure de cloner son utilisateur et de swapper entre ses clones. L'objectif est de résoudre des énigmes pour débloquer des passages et ainsi d'explorer une station spatiale abandonnée (dont l'équipage est mort) afin de découvrir ce qui s'y est déroulé.

🎥️ Videos

🎲️ Gameplay: (202xxx♺), (202xxx♺), [fr](202xxx♺),

📕 Description [en]

📜️ "blabla" 📜️

The Swapper is an atmospheric puzzle platformer set in the furthest reaches of space. Players wield an experimental device able to clone the user and swap control between them. Dropped into a character and world as mysterious as the workings of the device itself, The Swapper is a game of exploration of a very personal nature.

All of the art in The Swapper is constructed using clay models and other everyday materials.

The Swapper is supported by Indie Fund and holder of numerous awards and accolades, including PAX 10, IndieCade and Indie Game Challenge. It was released on Steam at the end of May 2013.

🌍️ Wikipedia:

The Swapper is a puzzle-platform video game for Microsoft Windows, Mac OS X and Linux. It was developed and published by Facepalm Games, a small independent company based in Helsinki, Finland. Curve Studios later ported the game to Sony and Nintendo platforms in 2014. In this science fiction-themed title, the player controls a female scavenger stranded aboard an abandoned research station, and discovers a strange device that allows her to create clones of herself switching their consciousness between these clones. The player uses this ability to solve various puzzles and learn about the fate of the station's researchers. The Swapper was released on May 30, 2013 to critical acclaim, with reviewers praising the game's visual style and atmosphere, the quality of the puzzles, and the game's ability to innovate on an already well established game mechanic.

Gameplay

The Swapper is a side-scrolling puzzle-platformer set in a science fiction universe. The player controls a person stranded on a damaged space station and looking for means to escape. To do so, they must explore the station and find orbs that are used to activate certain doors, allowing them to progress further into the game. The game uses some concepts of "Metroidvania" games in which the player may have to backtrack through the facility, divided into a number of rooms, to proceed within the game.

The player acquires a hand-held cloning tool early in the game through which they solve puzzles to collect orbs. The tool offers two functions: the ability to create up to four simultaneous clones of the player character, and the ability to swap control to any of these clones as long as they are within line of sight. Once created, the clones will move with the player unless otherwise blocked by the environment; for example, if the player moves left, all the clones will also move left unless they run into a wall. This allows the player to complete complex steps to activate doors and switches as to acquire the orbs. Like the player, clones can also die falling from a large height or through other environmental hazards. Clones are reclaimed if they die or if they physically move into the same space as the player. When using the cloning tool, time slows down, allowing the player to execute more difficult maneuvers involving the clones. One example is to scale a vertical area by repeating the process of creating a clone higher than the currently active clone and immediately swapping control to the new clone while it is falling in mid-air, until a safe platform at the top of the area can be reached by a clone. Later levels include sections of the station where gravity has been reversed, increasing the difficulty of the puzzles.

The cloning functionality is limited by certain light sources. Blue lights will prevent clones from being created in the illuminated area, while red lights will block the control swapping ability; purple lights block both actions. Touching certain white lights, moving off the current stage, or touching another clone will otherwise destroy those clones.

Plot

Humanity has exhausted their natural resources, so seven remote outposts are established in distant space to extract and synthesize useful materials from their neighboring planets, to send back to Earth. The crews of the space stations must survive independently off Earth for several decades. First Station 7 loses orbit and disintegrates into its closest sun, then Station 6 goes offline for unknown reasons.

When the crew of Theseus explore an uninhabitable desert planet called Chori V, with abundant natural mineral deposits, they find a more durable steel amalgam, an alien life form similar to Earth's silkworm, and highly complex rock formations of unknown origin. The rocks display unusual electro-chemical activity, leading some to believe they may possess rudimentary intelligence. The crew call these rocks 'The Watchers'.

Over time, the crew begins to notice that the rocks are penetrating their dreams, and come to believe that the rocks are telepathic. The scientists use what they learned from the rocks' electro-chemicals to create a device they call 'The Swapper'. They learn that this device creates clones of the user, and allows them to become the clone. A failed attempt at swapping two different people, which causes such massive memory loss as to make it impossible to know if either person was actually swapped, leads to a ban on person to person swapping. One of the crew, Dr. Chalmers, circumvents the ban by performing brain transplants on terminally-ill patients and keeping their brains alive. She believes she can use the swapper directly on the transplanted brains, and swap the person's consciousness into a body, prolonging their life. Her colleague, Dr. Dennett, disagrees with this practice on ethical grounds.

As time goes by and the scientists learn that the Watchers are millions of years old, they are believed to be much more intelligent than previously thought, perhaps even more intelligent than humans themselves.

The first Watcher to be found mysteriously resembles the shape of a human face, with eyes, a nose, mouth, and ornately carved decorations. It exhibits far more neurological activity than the other Watchers. The scientists hypothesize that it acts as a communications hub for the rest of the Watchers. They record radioactivity from the Head Watcher, but deem it safe enough for the crew to be around. However, members of the crew begin dying, and areas of the ship are deemed uninhabitable. The crew barricade themselves inside one area of the ship, thinking something must have followed them back from the planet surface. It soon becomes clear that the Watchers are causing the deaths. People report being able to hear the Watchers' thoughts. Those who do die shortly afterwards. By the time the crew realize the cause of the deaths, it is too late. They have brought on board so many hundreds of them, they would never be able to jettison them all into space and off the station.

📕 Description [fr]

Un jeu de plateformes et de réflexion dans l'espace, où le joueur peut cloner son utilisateur et swapper entre ses clones, par le studio Facepalm Games (Olli Harjola).
En Mono.

The Swapper est un jeu de plateformes et de réflexion dont l'action se situe dans les coins les plus reculés de l'espace, et dont la particularité est que le joueur est en mesure de cloner son utilisateur (jusqu'à 4 clones) et de swapper entre ses clones. L'objectif est de résoudre des énigmes pour débloquer des passages et ainsi d'explorer une station spatiale abandonnée (dont l'équipage est mort) afin de découvrir ce qui s'y est déroulé.

The Swapper est un jeu de plateforme et de puzzle avec une atmosphère dont l'action se situe dans les coins les plus reculés de l'espace.
Les joueurs manient un dispositif expérimental en mesure de cloner son utilisateur et de swapper entre ses clones.
Plaçant le joueur dans le rôle d'un personnage et dans un monde aussi mystérieux que le fonctionnement de l'appareil lui-même, The Swapper est un jeu d'exploration de nature très personnelle.
Tout l'art dans The Swapper est construit en utilisant des modèles d'argile et d'autres matériaux de tous les jours.

The Swapper est soutenu par des Fonds indépendant et a reçu de nombreux prix et distinctions, comprenant le PAX 10, IndieCade et "Indie Game Challenge".
Il a été publié sur Steam fin mai 2013.

🌍️ Wikipedia:

The Swapper est un jeu vidéo de réflexion indépendant développé par le studio finlandais Facepalm Games.

Il est disponible sur PC depuis le 30 mai 2013 pour Microsoft Windows et depuis le 18 février 2014 pour Mac OS X et Linux) ; il est ensuite sorti le 5 août 2014 sur PlayStation 3, Playstation 4 et PlayStation Vita, le 6 novembre 2014 sur Wii U et le 5 juin 2015 sur Xbox One.

Histoire

Le joueur contrôle un astronaute dans un laboratoire de recherche spatial qui étudie d'étranges roches alien qui sont capables de communiquer avec les êtres humains. Celui-ci est vide de toute vie. L'histoire est racontée via des journaux de bord trouvés au sein de l'appareil.

Au début du jeu, le personnage joué trouve le Swapper, un fusil capable de générer des clones sans vie du personnage joué. Celui-ci est capable de transférer sa conscience de l'un à l'autre.

Système de jeu

The Swapper est une suite d'énigmes. Pour chacune d'entre elle, le joueur doit réussir à obtenir une orbe. Ceux-ci permettent d'ouvrir de nouveaux passages dans la station spatiale.

Les énigmes du jeu sont basées sur la possibilité de créer des clones à l'aide d'un fusil. Ceux-ci se matérialisent là où le joueur vise. Ces clones ont la particularité de reproduire tous les mouvements du personnage joué. Le joueur peut ensuite se téléporter là où se trouve le clone. Dans certaines salles, des lumières empêchent le clonage ou la téléportation à certains endroits.