Fracter

Genre: Puzzle

Players: 1

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Review:

(Note: Review code provided by the kind folks at The Quantum Astrophysicists Guild)

Fracter is a character-driven Puzzle game with some light Stealth elements that has you playing as a person in an abstract world of black and white who has been split into various copies by a mirror and must collect the light copies while avoiding the dark copies. This game was originally released on mobile devices in 2018, ported to PC one year later, and brought to the Nintendo Switch in 2020.

This game’s aesthetic presentation is one of its strongest points, with the entire game depicted in black-and-white 3D visuals that underscore the game’s themes of light and dark. While not technically impressive, this stylized abstract look is nevertheless appealing, although I’m not completely sold on the understated and even a bit creepy soundtrack, which combines with some unsettling enemy character designs to make this feel like it wants to be a Horror game, even though it doesn’t really fit that description.

As for the puzzles themselves, this is pretty well-worn territory, with block-pushing puzzles, light-and-mirror puzzles, and switch puzzles that all will feel extremely familiar to anyone who’s played a Zelda game or two in the last decade or so. However, while there’s nothing extremely original here, the puzzles are nevertheless well-designed and should provide a fun exercise for fans of the genre.

I do have a few complaints, though. Firstly, this is a visually dark game, and even going into the options and turning up the brightness to maximum, it was still often difficult to make out details on-screen, something that is especially true in handheld mode. Also, and this is purely personal opinion, but the rhyming snippets of inspirational poetry that begin and end every level, while perhaps something that some may find endearing… to me they seemed overly sappy and it frustrated me that the game essentially forces players to stop to read them rather than giving them the option to skip.

However, probably this game’s biggest flaw is that it suffers from multiple bugs. In the few hours it took me to complete this game, I ran into one bug where moving platforms failed to reset and required me to restart a level (and there’s no menu option to simply restart the puzzle you’re on, so I had to replay the entire level), one bug where a block on a moving platform hovered in the air after the platform was moved, and one bug where an enemy that jumped me and caused me to respawn stayed in its faster “I’ve spotted you!” stance throughout my next attempt.

One more thing to note before I wrap things up here – despite this game starting out on mobile devices, and despite that its puzzles often seem ideal for touchscreen interaction, this game does not make use of the Nintendo Switch’s touchscreen. Having said that, the traditional gamepad controls work just fine, although your character does have a tendency to “snap to” boxes and push them at the lightest provocation. It’s a minor frustration, but one that seemed important to note.

However, in the end, despite the bugs and lack of originality in the game’s puzzles, I still think that Fracter is a decent character-driven Puzzle game with a stylish presentation that fans of the genre will likely enjoy. It’s short, but at only $7 that’s not really a huge issue, and while the puzzles here won’t blow anyone’s minds, they’re still generally well-crafted. If Zelda-style puzzles are your jam, this game is definitely worth a look.

tl;dr – Fracter is a character-based Puzzle game with some light Stealth elements, where players push blocks and use mirrors to redirect light in a black-and-white world. The game is a bit buggy, and the puzzles here aren’t especially original, but those puzzles are well-designed, and those along with the stylish presentation make this a game that’s worth a look for fans of the genre.

Grade: C+

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