If you haven’t heard of Strings Theory and enjoy puzzle platformer games, check out the trailer first right here and then come back to this post. It’ll be easier to visualize what we’re talking about once you’ve seen it for yourself, believe us.
Now that you’ve got a visual in your head, let’s talk about Strings Theory. It’s one of those games that intrigues at first glance because of the unusual art—your characters are colorful bundles of string, and each level is essentially a tiled gameboard. It’s simple, it doesn’t take a lot to understand what you’ll be dealing with when it loads up. And when you start playing, the learning curve isn’t that steep either. With less clutter on the screen, it’s easier to take in what to do and how to do it.
The PAX Online demo for Strings Theory showcased increasing levels of difficulty and a few different “characters” with their own unique abilities. Each new mechanic is tested out first, so you learn how it works, and then you get to incorporate it with everything else you’ve learned in order to solve a more difficult puzzle. It’s a system we’ve seen before, time and time again, with Nintendo indies—but that’s not a bad thing. It gets used because it works.
Here’s the basic breakdown, if you didn’t gather it from the trailer: You knock down raised square tiles to create bridges between areas of the board. You traverse said board to gather tangles of string. Once you’ve gathered enough string, a teleporter will open and you need to find a way to reach it to complete the level. However, figuring out how to reach the string and the teleporter will become increasingly difficult—not so much so in the demo, but enough that you get a good sense of the potential here. For example, one of the characters can traverse the underside of the board to reach areas that others can’t. Another is a set of string “twins” who can call platforms across gaps on the board.
It’s charming, it’s a simple concept, and it was a pleasant playing experience. Will it bring anything particularly new to the genre? That remains to be seen. Will it stand out from the puzzle platformer pack after release? Good question. There’s potential here, but it could just as well become pleasant background noise. Either way, it’s better than the alternative—there’s nothing here that we disliked, so that’s a good start.
PAX Online Listing Information:
- Available on PC / Nintendo Switch / Xbox One
- Genre Arcade / Platform / Puzzle
- Release date Q3 2020
- Exhibitor Indie Games Poland Foundation
Physical “Theory of Strings” with a grain of salt.
Freaky, tricky logic game, with abstract concept and touching heroes.
“String Theory – physical string theory describes the world as vibrating miniature energy strings in a 10-dimensional space.”
The same physical string theory is a pretext for us to create a logic game with a broadly expanded story in which we place great pressure on the individual character of the protagonists.
