Info about The Entropy Centre:

Official game description:
The Entropy Centre is a mind-bending puzzle adventure where you reverse objects through time to overcome seemingly impossible obstacles and conundrums.
Manipulate time to your will and solve ingeniously challenging puzzle rooms, each one taking you closer to the heart of a colossal space station in orbit of Earth.
An extinction level event has set the world ablaze. You appear to be the last remaining person alive. Mankind’s only hope lies at the core of the Entropy Centre.
Meet ASTRA, The Entropy Centre’s most advanced technical marvel. ASTRA is an AI-powered device that can scan an object’s spacetime chronology and move it through the past. Powers include rebuilding collapsing pillars to reheating cups of tea. She’s pretty chill.
The truth behind The Entropy Centre’s imminent collapse, and the Earth’s demise, can be found at the heart of this sprawling dangerous facility. But will you accept the unfortunate truth that awaits?
Deviously challenging with razor-sharp witty writing and outstanding voice acting performances, The Entropy Centre merges a brilliant puzzle game with an epic adventure.

Release date: 3 Nov, 2022

Categories: Puzzle Solving, Environmental Puzzle, Single-player Story, Time-based Mechanics, Exploration, Level Editor, Character Interaction, Environmental Storytelling


- Hardware Profile: No data
Feature extractions:
- Community Price: No data
- Playtime Metrics: No data
- Time-to-fun: No data
- Player Archetypes: No data


Below are summaries of things people say about the game per category.
Each point is assigned a weight that represents how often it is mentioned across all reviews.
What players like:
- Innovative Time-Manipulation Puzzles (weight 1): Players consistently praise the game's core time-rewinding mechanic as unique, well-implemented, and highly engaging. The puzzles are described as clever, challenging yet fair, and progressively complex, offering a satisfying 'Aha!' moment upon solution. This mechanic is seen as a fresh take on the puzzle genre.
- Compelling Story and Narrative (weight 0.96): The game's story, lore, and narrative pacing are frequently highlighted as strong points. Players found the plot engaging, intriguing, and well-written, with a satisfying emotional impact and an ending that resonated deeply. The philosophical themes and world-building also contributed to a rich narrative experience.
- Strong Portal-like Experience (weight 0.88): Many players compare the game favorably to the Portal series, often calling it a worthy successor or the 'best Portal clone.' It successfully captures the essence, humor, and puzzle-solving satisfaction of Portal while introducing its own unique mechanics and identity, making it a must-play for fans of the genre.
- High Production Quality (weight 0.87): The game receives significant praise for its overall polish, impressive graphics, atmospheric sound design, and excellent voice acting. Players were particularly impressed by the quality given that it was largely developed by a single person, noting smooth performance and a bug-free experience.
- Overall Enjoyable and Rewarding (weight 0.81): Players consistently describe the game as fun, enjoyable, and a worthwhile experience. Many expressed satisfaction with their time spent, the value for money, and the overall positive impression the game left, often leading to a desire to replay or recommend it.
- Charming Characters and Dialogue (weight 0.19): The interactions between the main character, Aria, and the AI companion, Astra, are a major highlight. Their witty banter, humor, and emotional dynamic are consistently praised, adding significant charm and personality to the game and making the journey more enjoyable.

Common complaints:
- Repetitive and Tedious Puzzles (weight 0.71): Many players found the puzzles to be overly repetitive, lacking in creativity, and becoming tedious, especially in the latter half of the game. The difficulty curve was often criticized for being too flat or inconsistent, leading to boredom rather than engaging challenge.
- Unsatisfying and Predictable Story (weight 0.26): The narrative was widely criticized for being unengaging, predictable, and ultimately unsatisfying. Many felt the story lacked depth, failed to deliver on its initial concepts, and left too many questions unanswered, leading to a sense of futility by the end.
- Derivative of Portal Series (weight 0.17): A large portion of the feedback highlighted the game's strong resemblance to Portal, often describing it as a 'knock-off' or 'blatant plagiarism.' Players felt it failed to capture the humor, polish, story depth, or innovative puzzle design of its inspiration.
- Poor Execution and Clunky Mechanics (weight 0.17): A significant number of players reported frustration with the execution of puzzle solutions, citing clunky controls, imprecise physics, and buggy jump pads. This often led to repeated restarts, even after understanding the solution, making the gameplay feel more like a chore than a fun challenge.
- Lack of Polish and Quality of Life (weight 0.08): Players noted a general lack of polish across various aspects of the game, including graphics, humor, dialogue, and overall design. Issues like poor checkpoints, unskippable narration, and a lack of accessibility options further detracted from the experience.
- Limited and Restrictive Rewind Mechanic (weight 0.05): The core time rewind mechanic, while central, was often found to be restrictive. Limitations like strict time limits, inability to rewind the player character, and imprecise object manipulation contributed to tedium and frustration, rather than enhancing puzzle complexity.
- Frustrating Action/Combat Elements (weight 0.04): The inclusion of combat and action sequences in a puzzle-focused game was a major point of contention. Players found these segments to be clunky, frustrating, and disruptive to the puzzle-solving experience, often leading to unexpected deaths and restarts.

Gameplay feedback:
- Varied Puzzle Design & Difficulty (weight 0.36): The game offers a substantial number of puzzles (around 75) with a gradual difficulty curve, introducing new elements frequently. While generally considered low to medium difficulty, some late-game puzzles can be quite challenging, requiring multi-step solutions and precise execution.
- Strong Portal Inspiration (weight 0.31): The game is heavily inspired by the Portal series, featuring a similar first-person puzzle style, a dilapidated facility setting, an AI companion, and comparable puzzle elements like cubes, light bridges, and jump pads. However, it differentiates itself with its core time-rewind mechanic.
- Engaging Story & World-Saving Goal (weight 0.26): Players control Aria, an amnesiac astronaut, who awakens in the Entropy Center. Her mission is to solve puzzles using the 'entropy gun' to generate energy and rewind Earth's destruction, slowly uncovering the facility's secrets and the events leading to the cataclysm.
- Action & Exploration Elements (weight 0.25): Beyond core puzzles, the game includes light platforming, exploration of the facility, and occasional action sequences involving hostile robot drones. These elements break up the puzzle-solving pace.
- Core Time Rewind Mechanic (weight 0.24): The central gameplay revolves around a unique time-rewind mechanic, allowing players to reverse the movement of individual objects. This requires a 'think-in-reverse' approach to puzzle-solving, setting it apart from traditional puzzle games.
- Moderate Game Length (weight 0.18): The game provides a decent playtime, typically ranging from 8 to 12 hours for main story completion and up to 18 hours for 100% completion. This length is considered good for a puzzle game.
- Post-Game Content & Features (weight 0.05): After completing the campaign, players unlock a chapter selector to revisit levels and find missed lore. The game also includes a level editor and supports community-created custom levels, extending replayability.

Performance notes:
- Generally strong performance (weight 0.08): Players widely report that the game is well-optimized and runs smoothly on a variety of hardware, including older or modest systems. Many experienced no significant bugs, crashes, or frame drops during their playthroughs.
- Occasional performance dips and bugs (weight 0.05): Despite overall good performance, some players encountered specific issues. These include occasional frame drops, especially in action-heavy sections, areas with many particle effects, or later in the game. A few players also reported minor bugs like disappearing textures, objects passing through geometry, or rare crashes that sometimes required a level restart.

Recommendations:
- Strongly recommended for Portal fans (weight 0.31): The game is highly recommended for fans of the Portal series and similar first-person puzzle games like The Talos Principle. Many players consider it a worthy spiritual successor or alternative to Portal, especially for those seeking more content in that genre.
- Puzzles are the main draw (weight 0.27): The core appeal of the game lies in its puzzles, which are often highlighted as the primary reason to play. Players recommend it for the hours of puzzle-solving, suggesting that the gameplay mechanics are engaging and well-designed, even if some find the challenge level lighter than other titles.
- Generally positive reception (weight 0.2): Overall, the game receives a positive reception from players, with many recommending it and expressing enjoyment. Reviewers frequently give it high ratings and hope for future content or sequels, indicating a satisfying experience for a significant portion of the player base.
- Mixed feelings on overall recommendation (weight 0.14): Despite many positive comments, a notable portion of players express mixed feelings or outright do not recommend the game. Reasons range from boredom and annoyance to specific frustrating levels or a preference for other games in the genre, suggesting it might not appeal to everyone.
- Good value, especially on sale (weight 0.1): While many players recommend the game, there's a strong consensus that it offers excellent value when purchased at a discount. Some reviewers suggest waiting for a sale, indicating that the full price might be a barrier for some, but it's a worthwhile purchase at a reduced cost.
- Lore is a secondary focus (weight 0.01): While the game includes lore entries, players suggest that the story and lore are not the primary draw. Those more interested in deep narrative than gameplay might be disappointed, indicating that the game's strength lies more in its mechanics than its storytelling.

Other player notes:
- Strong Portal Series Inspiration (weight 0.18): The game is heavily and consistently compared to the Portal series, particularly Portal 2, in terms of visual presentation, puzzle elements (cubes, lasers, jump pads), AI companion dynamics, and overall atmosphere. Many players consider it a spiritual successor or 'Portal 3'.
- Engaging Sci-Fi Narrative (weight 0.1): Players found the game's sci-fi plot, world-building, and sense of mystery to be genuinely interesting and immersive. The story, often revealed through environmental details and computer terminals, provides a solid backdrop to the puzzle-solving.
- Impressive Visuals and Polish (weight 0.06): Despite being largely a solo project, the game boasts excellent graphics, lighting, and overall presentation. Players noted its high level of polish and visual quality, often punching above its weight.
- Charming AI Companion (weight 0.04): The AI companion, ASTRA, is a highlight for many players. Her humorous, ironic dialogues and dynamic with the protagonist, Aria, add significant personality and enjoyment to the game.
- Level Editor and Community Potential (weight 0.03): The inclusion of a level editor and online sharing functionality was noted as a significant feature, offering potential for community-created content and extended replayability, though some haven't explored it yet.
- Moderate Playtime and Replayability (weight 0.03): The game offers a decent playtime, typically ranging from 8 to 17 hours for completion, with more for achievement hunters. While not highly replayable in its main campaign, the level editor adds potential for longevity.
- Atmospheric and Thematic Depth (weight 0.02): The game successfully creates an atmospheric experience, sometimes evoking horror notes. It explores grim themes like environmental destruction and a post-apocalyptic setting, adding a layer of depth to the puzzle-solving.
- Solo Developer Achievement (weight 0.02): Many players were impressed by the fact that the game was primarily developed by a single individual. This context often enhanced their appreciation for the game's quality and scope.
- Predictable Story Elements (weight 0.01): While the overall story is engaging, some players found certain plot points to be classic, predictable, or uninspired, suggesting room for more originality in narrative twists.
- Unique Time Rewind Mechanic (weight 0.01): The core gameplay revolves around a distinctive time manipulation mechanic, specifically rewinding objects' paths. This mechanic forms the basis of the puzzles and is central to the game's identity.
- Puzzle Design Limitations (weight 0.01): Some feedback, though limited, suggests that the puzzle design could be improved, with a potential fear of offering multiple solutions or an excessive number of single-player levels.
- Desire for Sequel and Narrative Refinement (weight 0.01): Some players expressed a desire for a sequel, hoping for continued development and potentially a more refined narrative with a stronger ending or clearer resolution to the implied time loop.
- Sound Design Contributes to Atmosphere (weight 0.01): The game's audio, including atmospheric sounds and beautiful sound effects, contributes positively to the overall immersive experience.
- Distinct Identity Beyond Inspiration (weight 0.01): Despite heavy inspiration from other titles, the game ultimately carves out its own identity with its unique mechanics, story, and twists, proving to be more than just a clone.

Emotions:
- Satisfaction (weight 0.32): Players felt satisfied by the game's clever and challenging puzzle design, often comparing it favorably to Portal while appreciating its unique time-rewinding mechanic. The engaging story, well-developed characters (especially Astra), strong world-building, and polished visuals also contributed significantly to a rewarding overall experience.
- Frustration (weight 0.15): Frustration stemmed primarily from repetitive or tedious puzzles, often exacerbated by clunky controls, precision platforming requirements, and unforgiving mechanics like limited rewind time or instant death. Bugs, performance issues (especially on Linux), and poorly implemented action/combat sequences also frequently led to player annoyance and the need for restarts.
- Disappointment (weight 0.14): Disappointment arose when the game failed to meet high expectations, particularly in comparison to Portal. Players cited a lack of polish, unfulfilled potential in puzzle mechanics, a predictable or unsatisfying story ending, and a perceived lack of originality. Repetitive or overly simple puzzles, combined with an excessive game length, also contributed to a feeling of the game becoming a chore.
- Enjoyment (weight 0.08): Players enjoyed the game for its unique puzzle gameplay, engaging story, and well-crafted atmosphere. The character dynamics, particularly the dialogues with Astra, were frequently highlighted as a source of entertainment. The game's visuals, sound design, and overall immersive experience also contributed to a fun and captivating playthrough.
- Excitement (weight 0.07): Excitement was generated by the game's innovative rewind mechanic, challenging puzzles, and intriguing sci-fi plot. Players were thrilled by the game's high quality, polished design, and engaging narrative, often recommending it enthusiastically to fans of similar puzzle games like Portal. The anticipation for future projects from the developer also fueled excitement.
- Boredom (weight 0.03): Boredom was a common sentiment, particularly in the early or later stages of the game, due to puzzles feeling uninspired, repetitive, or overly simple. The monotonous task of arranging boxes, excessive walking, and a perceived lack of challenge or story progression contributed to a tedious and unengaging experience for some players.
- Admiration (weight 0.03): Admiration was primarily directed at the game's impressive quality, especially considering it was largely a solo development project. Players were impressed by the inventive design, intellectual stimulation, stunning graphics, and compelling narrative, often praising it as a worthy successor or even surpassing games like Portal in certain aspects.
- Appreciation (weight 0.02): Players appreciated the game's unique premise, originality despite Portal comparisons, and the passion evident in its creation. The low hardware requirements, high quality of execution, and the distinct graphic, narrative, and gameplay touches were also valued. The character of Astra and the immersive Russian localization were specific points of appreciation.
- Engagement (weight 0.02): Engagement was driven by the game's profound and mind-bending narrative, which kept players hooked and invested in the story and its mysteries. Complex and evolving puzzle mechanics, combined with character interactions and the active pursuit of lore, also contributed to a deeply immersive and captivating experience.
- Joy (weight 0.02): Joy stemmed from the fun and challenging puzzles, the creativity of the story, and the overall polished experience. Players expressed delight in solving complex puzzles, exploring detailed environments, and the desire to replay the game, often comparing the feeling to the Portal series.
- Annoyance (weight 0.01): Annoyance was caused by frequent and often unfun PvE sections, repetitive puzzles, and specific irritating elements like a persistent horn hum in the soundtrack or an annoying main character/sidekick. Imprecise platforming and a perceived lack of originality also contributed to player irritation.
- Curiosity (weight 0.01): Curiosity was sparked by the game's pervasive sense of mystery, intriguing story developments, and the desire to uncover lore. Players were keen to understand the motivations behind hostile entities and the potential for multiple puzzle solutions, as well as anticipating the developer's future projects.
- Confusion (weight 0.01): Confusion arose from the story's ending, particularly regarding Earth's rewinding and the protagonist's origin, which lacked clarity. Inconsistent mechanics, the unexpected inclusion of combat, and the protagonist's strange reactions to catastrophic events also left players bewildered.
- Mild disappointment (weight 0.01): Mild disappointment was felt due to issues like slow story pacing, an abundance of simple or repetitive early puzzles, and a lack of closure or unanswered questions at the end. Minor graphical imperfections and erratic difficulty also contributed to a slightly underwhelming experience.
- Mild frustration (weight 0.01): Mild frustration was caused by softlocks, bugs, and puzzles that relied on trial-and-error or had fuzzy hitboxes. The game's length, combined with repetitive puzzle-solving and clunky physics, also led to minor irritation, making some players feel the game dragged on.
- Surprise (weight 0.01): Players were surprised by the game's ending, the realization that it was largely a solo development project, and the unexpected versatility of the main mechanic. The plot often delivered pleasant twists, and the game managed to hold attention longer than anticipated, leading to moments of delightful realization.
- Love (weight 0.01): Love for the game stemmed from its core puzzles, unique identity, and overall immersive experience. The environment, ambience, and Astra's humor were particularly cherished, leading many players to declare the game a favorite and an amazing experience.
- Interest (weight 0.01): Interest was generated by the game's unique puzzle mechanics, intriguing story, and its similarity to Portal. The combination of puzzles and narrative, along with the repercussions of the time mechanic, captivated players and drew them into the gameplay.
- Amusement (weight 0.01): Amusement was derived from the fun and ditzy robot companion, Astra, and her funny jokes. Players also found humor in puzzles that could be 'tricked' or solved in unconventional ways, along with the game's witty dialogues and overall lighthearted moments.
- Affection (weight 0): Affection was primarily directed towards the AI companion, Astra, who was described as cute, endearing, and a touching character. Players expressed a strong fondness for her humor and personality, often vouching for the game because of her presence.}