now playing: "Continuity"

Continuity
Genre(s): Puzzle, action
Credits: Ragtime Games, 2009 (Best Student Game, 2010 Independent Games Festival)

I'm most used to hearing the word "continuity" tossed around while discussing any one of my particular fandoms, and usually only when it appears to be significantly unavailable—sometimes in the producers' attempts to assemble too many plot pieces into the same universe (Star Trek), and sometimes in the actual story (see any episodes of the rebooted Doctor Who). So when I discovered that a popular Kongregate title was labeled thusly, I braced myself for something undoubtedly mind-blowing, reality-questioning, and hopelessly confusing.

To my grateful surprise, Continuity's genius lies in its simplicity. In fact, my earlier prejudices only made it worse for me as I found myself "hopelessly confused" as anticipated on the very first puzzle. There's no kind of a storyline, nothing fancy in the graphics (as you saw, the menu screen is simply Helvetica font painted on a black canvas)—just a thematically-customized soundtrack and gameplay revolving around spatial continuity. 

Not only is it an engaging puzzle, but combined with the illusion that the player is the actual game designer, Continuity can be best described as a meta-platformer. Its point-A-to-B-to-C-back-to-A mechanic is strikingly similar to Valve's Portal games, sketched out from the omnipresent two-dimensional third-person perspective. The "meta" aspect manifests in the sliding tile map—the true gameplay axis. Player-character movement within each tile is wholly secondary to the game's strengths. Although getting through the door is each level's objective, the means of accomplishing it is constructionist and even synergistic, as the player and the designer (figuratively & telekinetically) put their heads together, and ask "how many ways can we rearrange this labyrinth? how can we make this more interesting to play?"

Slide the tiles around to navigate through the maze, collect any keys, and pass through the door to the next level.

"Zoom in" on a tile to control your movement within a piece of the puzzle. If the current tile "lines up" with an adjacent other, you can move freely between them.

While mechanics alone earn Continuity a discussion on "transcending pixels," the minimalist color scheme of black and white with a touch of red enhances the game's focus on non-Euclidean space. Given the frequent monotony of most casual action games, especially platformers, (how much more is required besides a few keyboard controls, repetitively looped?), loading up the plate with the most colorful graphics your cards can handle is totally natural and classically nostalgic. Sonic and Mario owe their glory days to the busy color overload that, when recreated on today's infinitely harder-better-faster-stronger tech, comes across as a cheesy retro knockoff. Continuity's lack of vibrancy or photorealism doesn't detract a bit from the gameplay and adds a nice postmodern artsy touch to the futurist theme.

A sequel is currently in "universal app" development; from the promotional trailer, it appears to retain the meta-sliding-tile element while adding in colorful switches, bonus items to collect, and "high score" times to beat. While it'll undoubtedly be just as fun to play as its parent, the monotone classic will always be the preferred favorite in the "transcending pixels" collection for its thematic unity and minimalist motives.

Next time: A philosophical platformer where life & death really is the theme.