Remember Small Worlds - the cute pixel art game that saw you repair your spaceship by gradually expanding your vision through exploration? Well, This Is Infinity, from Cactus Squid and entered into Ludum Dare 16, is another game about exploration, but the polar opposite of Small Worlds in almost every other way.

If Small Worlds was a guided tour through a beautiful city, This Is Infinity is a frantic run at 2am through its nastiest slums, chased by unknown assailants. To sum up the difference in a word, you’d go for “distress” – the player is dumped, with absolutely no guidance, in a flickering, flashing monochrome world. The way out is to explore.

Initially, you won’t find the presentation too jarring. There are trees, cats, and birds, But step into one of the four portals dotted around and you’ll find yourself in an explicable landscape of moving shapes, shifting perspectives and utter confusion. Only by a little exploration and observation will you work out each area’s puzzle, which returns you back to the central point again.

The puzzles aren’t difficult at all. What makes the game very tricky, though, is that they’re masked by a complete lack of pointers. One area, in particular, is hopelessly disorienting, and you’ll need to keep stopping to get your perspective back. Another frustrates you endlessly until you work out the trick. However, you won’t get anywhere with them without a bit of experimentation – you can’t fail, or die, so you just have to keep plugging at it until you ‘get’ the answer.

There’s no time limit within the game, but you might find the graphics a little hard to take for too long without the aid of asprin. Call that a ’soft’ time limit, then. Thankfully it doesn’t last too long – which is an odd thing to say about a game, but the short time you play will speak volumes to you about the value of proper direction in games, and how you can mask the simplest ideas with distracting presentation.

You can download the Windows-only game executable from Cactus Squid’s original blog post about the game, which also comes with a video of it in action. If you’re struggling, there’s a walkthrough which also includes some non-spoilery tips, but this isn’t too tough – if you’re having trouble, just observe for a minute, and try different things. You’ll get it.

(via EGP)