This Playable MC Escher Painting Will Make Your Head Spin

Fragments of Euclid isn't afraid to lean into disorientation, using its visuals to justify the bizarre architecture and keep its world readable even as it spins around in different orientations.

The real core mechanic here is so subtle it almost escapes notice at first: moving through a portal won't change the pull of gravity as you perceive it, even though the orientation of everything around you might change according to the orientation of the portal. The very first puzzle is solved entirely by moving through the space in the right way, immediately selling why this mechanic is strong enough to hang a whole game on.

While the construction of some puzzles here is the traditional cube-and-button affair we remember from Portal, the game has a very different feel. It's a little more baroque, a little more spacious; there's a longer moment of walking the room and figuring out the terrain before taking action. Traversing and exploring the mind-bending landscape is foregrounded over the more goal-oriented puzzle solving; there's a soothing, ambient quality to it.

Also unlike Portal, the entire game is one contiguous level. Puzzle games that use this kind of structure always feel more satisfying, as your past accomplishments become the backdrop to what you're doing. Fragments of Euclid borrows a little from The Witness to play that up, with the landscape subtly changing as you solve puzzles. But the small size of the game compresses those moments together and heightens this effect; for something relatively short, it's a very satisfying game.

Finishing it took me less than an hour; there's definitely a lot more to do with these ideas than the game explores, so it doesn't overstay its welcome. The four puzzle rooms on offer here are also fairly different from one another: some rely more on simply navigating the confusing landscape, others rely more on abusing the nonsensical physics.

I don't play a lot of games in this vein; most of them tend towards bloat, or lack a strong enough hook. While the austere aesthetics made me curious to play it, Fragments of Euclid hooked me by showing how much you can do with a simple twist of perspective.

You can get Fragments of Euclid on Itch.io.