It wears its Aperture Science influences on its sleeve, but this is absolutely a worthy entry in the Portal-like subgenre of puzzle games. The fact that this was developed by a single person is mind-boggling!

My main critique of it is that the core to every puzzle's solution feels very same-y. Once you identify the final step in a certain level's sequence of required actions, everything falls into place easily, for the most part. I still had fun figuring it all out, though; and a few levels rose to the challenge that I would have preferred seeing across more of the game. (I never had to use a walkthrough or look up answers, for the record.)

The Entropy Centre is a fun Portal-like puzzle game that follows the idea of waking up in an abandoned science testing facility with a powerful physics-altering gun and an AI companion that stays with you throughout the game. While this does sound like a direct copy, this is where most of the comparisons end. The Entropy Centre makes use of many fun time puzzles and introduces something new in each chapter to keep you on your toes. The story is also pretty interesting as it goes into the consequences of time manipulation and humanity as a whole. The only bad part about The Entropy Centre is how at the end, it tends to drag on for a bit too long. I kept thinking that this puzzle would be the last and that caused the climax moment of the story to drag out and made me lose a bit of the rush, but overall it was still an enjoyable experience.

An extremely original, if not at times a little convoluted, story about the time we have left and what we do when it runs out, all told while playing through the myriad of sometimes entertaining puzzles the game has to offer. The gameplay loop leaves some to be desired, as once you get the hang of things in about Chapter 5 or 6, it'll be pretty much the same thing all the way through. Figure out what has to happen in the puzzle (some combination of pressing buttons, jumping from cliff faces, walking across bridges), do the puzzle backwards, and then reverse time on all of the test elements. Rinse and repeat. Not the worst way to spend a Saturday though.

An ok half of a game I've played. The game was a bit rough as far as the cleanup and while I enjoyed the dialogue, the puzzles just keep going and going. After looking up the ending all of it was building up to, Woooo what a downer.

Biggest issue is that time inbetween solving a puzzle and waiting a few minutes to actually finish. Really brings it down a big

If you're going to make a game with a minor overarching story, make sure it's hopeful at the end. Otherwise it leaves a bad taste

6/10

this game is worth a playthrough!

that sentence is for people skimming through the reviews

i'll be honest and say that i really didn't like the game initially mostly because despite the very very clear resemblance to portal 2, it didn't seem to take one of the most important lessons from it

in portal 2, when there's a situation where you're forced to perform some sort of physics action (like launching yourself/an object off an aerial faith plate), the game will nudge you/the object slightly to make sure it/you land where you expect to, reducing the amount of frustration over slight miscalculations and miss-steps

this game has a lot of physics, and not a whole lot of nudging
not that this is routinely a problem in the game, but there's enough moments in there where i wished there was just a little more consideration put in for "what if the player holds forward" or "what if the player is still turning when they drop that cube"
this problem was made worse when combined with the main mechanic of the game, being the rewinding of objects

you'd think that if an object just slightly misses it's location, you can just rewind it and try again (or rewind it and catch it before it misses)
but if it falls into a bottomless pit, obviously that cant happen
not only that, but even if you do manage to rewind it to somewhere you can reach it, the game doesn't have infinite rewind on every object, meaning that the unintended movement of the object can actually erase the beginning of the object's timeline, meaning you have to do it all again (because the beginning of the object's timeline is often the most important place for it to be, like on a button to open the exit door)
or if you fall off a platform and now you're out of sync with the timeline of the objects, again you have to start from the beginning

it feels very punishing for simple mistakes, like solving a sudoku puzzle, spilling ink on the page right before the last number, and having to get another copy of the puzzle and fill in all the numbers you already did just to fill in that last number, it's very annoying

every single puzzle can be solved fairly easily by just working it out backwards
this isn't necessarily a bad thing but there is never really a change in difficulty, just a change in how long each puzzle takes to complete
i think there was only a single puzzle that genuinely stumped me (and i ended up cheesing it lol)

i was pretty annoyed at how much the game appears to borrow from portal design wise, but ultimately the developer is aware of this, is open about portal being an inspiration, and ultimately decided to do it anyways because he wanted to make the game, instead of scrapping the idea for being too similar (he said so in this reddit post)

honestly reading this made me feel a little bad for drawing so many comparisons because ultimately i dont want game developers to not make games out of fear of being too similar to other games

despite my paragraphs of grievances i actually enjoyed this game

it feels like it's rare for a game with a constant companion to actually get the dynamic and banter correct and not make it super annoying but this game actually does a pretty good job at it
i think the weakest dialogue is when the companion isn't there and it's just the main character

the story works pretty well (though there are some weak links, and unlike games like outer wilds and viewfinder, any incidental side characters are really forgettable)
and the ending....
well it kinda had me like this
i'd describe it as bad gameplay wise, but story wise i'm definitely interested in continuations and further development (and the developer hasn't ruled out utilizing the characters in the future so oh boy! get hyped!)

i can forgive a lot of my grievances with this game honestly by the fact that it was a solo developer who made the entire thing (except for the soundtrack and VA)
considering i mistakenly thought this game was made by a studio the entire time i played it, i'm actually really impressed with what he managed to do

a lot of little things like "why isn't there any furniture in this inaccessible room" or "why is there not a little secret in this hard to reach area" i can forgive because ultimately what does exist is pretty good and i understand that focusing on making the majority of it good is probably more important than the subtle details

if there's anything i really have a complaint about despite what i know now about the game, is that there was absolutely nothing rewarded after beating the game
which, considering the ending, it definitely could've done with
i'm talking about anything from development material (like the unfinished swan) to just telling me how long i spent on each puzzle
seriously i really wish i had the exact times of how long i spent on each puzzle, almost all of them were under 5 minutes, the last few were around 7 minutes, and one specific puzzle (the one i cheesed) took like 17 minutes long
apparently this game really clicks mechanics wise for some people and not at all for others, so i guess my brain just runs in reverse

anyways i definitely think despite it's flaws this is a pretty good game that has left me wanting more, i really look forward to some sort of continuation or expansion

and to throw in a random thought that's RELEVANT to current gaming discussion
this is an indie game!!!!!!!!

This game wears it's inspiration on it's sleeve. Entropy center is a first-person game where you solve puzzles in a sciencey place with a sci-fi gun, as an AI with a lot of personality talks to you..... sound familiar? Its basically Portal with some things swapped around. The biggest change is that the gun you use rewinds time instead of shooting portals.

Now being a Portal ripoff isn't a bad thing, especially since there aren't many games like it. However, it does mean you will be compared to 2 of the best games ever made, and this game doesn't stand up Portal 1 and 2. The writing and story is pretty good, the time gun is pretty cool, and the game is very polished. However, the puzzles just aren't as fun. What you find out pretty early on, is that basically every puzzle has you moving a cube from the final position you want it to the first position you want it, so you can rewind it as you jump through the puzzle. You do need to figure out where the cubes need to go, but its rarely that difficult, and after that the puzzles kind of just solve themselves. Not to mention the fact that tracing the path you want the cubes to move in is a little tedious, and if you screw up, you need to redo everything from the start.

That said the game is still fun. I just wish there was a little more to the puzzle design.

The Entropy Centre
Developed by: Stubby Games (@Stubby_Games)
Published by: Playstack (@PlaystackGames)

I’m just going to say it off right of the top. The Entropy Centre is a great sci-fi, puzzle game. Graphically the game is beautiful, the music is great and the puzzles are innovative and fun to figure out. The Entropy Centre is a game that the player should play with as little information as possible.

This game will be compared to Portal but I’m going to be honest and say that I’ve never played Portal. People like to call it a “time-based Portal.” Take that for what it’s worth. A spoiler free summary of the story of the game is that you’re playing as someone that is trying to prevent something bad from happening by rewinding time. By solving puzzles the player is building up “entropic energy” which will then be used to reverse the bad situation from happening.

Puzzles start off fairly easy to solve and as the story progresses they will become more and more complex. The game is separated in acts and in each act a new mechanic is introduced. As the player travels throughout the “Entropy Centre” they will encounter various obstacles that they will have to use their AI-powered gun named Astra to rewind time to remove obstacles out of the way or objects through time to trigger doorways to open or conveyor belts and more to move. The puzzles are solved using blocks and there are various forms of blocks. There are regular blocks, blocks that will make your player jump long distances, blocks that form bridges that allow you to cross gaps, and more. This game isn’t combat based but there will be time when you will have to “defeat” enemies by using the environment or their own attacks against them.

The Entropy Centre is well written and while it will vary from person to person I found the story emotional and engaging. I was on the edge of my seat at times dying for the next bit of story exposition. The Entropy Centre isn’t a “long game” per se. It’ll depend on the players skill and how quickly they’re able to complete each puzzle. The game on my first play through took me roughly 10 hours to complete but I’ve seen YouTube play throughs of the game being completed quicker. Whether that’s do to editing or the player having played the game before is hard to say.

My only complaint when it comes to the The Entropy Centre is that the controls didn’t feel good at times. Sections that required platforming via the jumping blocks felt “floaty” or very hard to execute at times. The game performed solidly and I didn’t encounter any bugs.

In conclusion I would highly recommend this game to fans of sci-fi stories and puzzle games. The innovative and original puzzles and the unique rewind time mechanic make this game a highly engaging and enjoyable experience. I tried my best to not spoil anything about the game and to keep it as vague as possible. Play this game with as little information as possible!

Pros:
The story
The sound design and soundtrack
The puzzles

Cons:
The controls when using certain mechanics to solve puzzles

Played on: Xbox Series X, purchased from the Xbox store.
Review Score: 4.5/5

Bem, tenho que começar falando que não é um jogo ruim, simplesmente não consigo. O que eu consigo falar é que é um jogo que consegue se estender MUITO e entendo total agora o tanto de abandoned que tem nesse jogo.

Eu gostei da história fofinha, tenta colocar um robozinho bonitinho pra vc achar fofo, os puzzles não são ruins também, mas nn sei, tudo nele parece ser uma carta de amor pra portal mas. .. chato

Eu comprei ele por um preço MEGA abaixo do que ele é hoje na steam br, que é 54,99 reais, eu comprei por 12 reais, e por esse preço eu consigo falar que vale a pena, claro, muito dificil algo nn valer 12 reais, mas NUNCA eu conseguiria falar pra comprar isso por sei lá, até 25/30 reais, acho muita grana ainda.

I've seen enough.

Ultra repetitive jank and then they throw in extremely unfun action sequences. But ultimately I quit just because of poor level design.

There is one puzzle repeated as nauseam in the game: put the blocks / lasers / bridges in the last spot they need to be in, then the 2nd to last, etc until they are in the first spot they need to be in, then execute by going through the puzzle and rewinding things to hit switches in the proper order. Changing how annoying it is to set up this sequence or how many different elements are needed does not make it a more interesting puzzle. It just makes it a longer more tedious puzzle.

Frequently you would only have access to part of a puzzle room at the beginning and can only predict the last couple places the objects will need to be. In these cases, you need to do half a puzzle, realize you didn't place all the objects properly to begin with once you can ACTUALLY see everything, go back and reset and start setting it all up again.

This is made even worse by janky puzzle setups where the physics can easily send an object in the wrong direction and force you to reset the whole puzzle again due to no fault of your own. There was an early puzzle that I had to do no less than 5 times because a block kept bouncing off the switch. Was this playtested at all?

If you like wasting hours on completely uninteresting puzzles in what is probably the worst Portal ripoff I have ever played, this game is just what the doctor ordered.