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A recipient of multiple nominations this IGF season, Closure has been given nods for excellence in technical design, audio and the ancillary Nuovo award. From what we’ve seen, the attention is well deserved.

Closure is one of those games that is simultaneously intuitive and mind-bending. A puzzle/platformer, Closure has you navigate a man through a 2D environment using orbs of light to illuminate a path to the end of a level. Here's the catch. Objects in the light are real and tangible. Objects that fall into shadows cease to exist. Simple as that. In this regard darkness fails to fulfill the archetypal role as a thing to be feared. Instead, Closure uses darkness as a malleable tool that lets you define the world around you.

The levels start easy in order to train your brain to think with light and dark. One of the first puzzles is fairly linear. Picking up an orb at your feet you must navigate to an illuminated door across the map. About halfway across you butt up against a pillar that separates you from your goal. At an impasse, you now need to back up a few steps (until the darkness veils the pillar) and set the ball of light down. With the pillar obscured, you are are clear to jump the black pit and land safely on the other side.

In early levels these portable orbs of light are your primary tool. Later puzzles become more complex by introducing switches, water, crates, barrels and other ways to interact with your environment. Anti-light bulbs are even added to the mix, making it impossible to shed light on certain parts of the level.

Closure is a simple concept wrapped in a challenging execution. We played 20 levels that sometimes left us in fits of frustration, but were always followed by a glorious moment of clarity. We can’t wait to see more.

(If you want to check out Closure's concept yourself, you can play an earlier flash version of the game for free.)

[Additional Game Details]
Platform: PC Release: TBA Price: TBA Website: Link