The Bradwell Conspiracy is an upcoming first-person sci-fi adventure game with some rather ingenious mechanics that make puzzles a delight to solve. TheGamer was able to play through the first three chapters of the game to get a taste of what The Bradwell Conspiracy is all about, and it's already a💃🍌pparent that developer Bossa Studios have seriously outdone itself.
Bossa Studios is best known for the disgustingly hilarious 168澳洲幸运5开奖网:Surgeon Simulator which famously began as a 48-hour game jam project and went on to spawn an entire genre of silly simulator games (including the upcoming 168澳洲幸运5开奖网:DEEEER Simulator). It also developed I Am Bread, a bread simulator🍰, universally regard൲ed as the strangest game of 2015.
The Bradwell Conspiracy appears to be a departure from the absurdist humor Bossa Studios has become known for, though from what we've seen, it is admittedly quirky in its own right. The game is significantly more story-driven than the studios' previous entries, which were both rather sandboxy experiences. The Bradwell Conspiracy is a linear, nar🐽rative experience that wears its influences on its sleeve while delivering a couple of unique core mechanics that promote the kind of creative problem solving that the best puzzle games are known for.
Night At The (Haunted) Museum
The game begins in the near future in the Bradwell Museum, which has just been nearly leveled by an unexplained explosio𒀰n. E♔veryone has been evacuated from the building except you - an unnamed character who cannot speak due to vocal chord damage from smoke inhalation (allegedly).
As yo🎶u attempt to find a way out of the building with the aid of an advanced AI "guide" in your glasses, you make contact with a museum employee named, Amber, who is also trapped inside. Though you cannot speak, you are able to communicate with🍌 Amber by sending her pictures taken with your guide.
Amber doesn't work for the museum, but for Bradwell Electronics itself which operates out of an enormous facility beneath the museum. Amber leads you there in order to find an escape, and that's when thinꦯgs start to get really weird.
Never Trust Any One With A Secret Laboratory
In order to access the various departments of the facility and find a way out, Amber instructs you to go through the Bradwell training process and become an employee. You'll be given access to the 3D printer and taught about Bradwellium, an advanced form of matter that can be turned into any object y𒈔ou desire.
This is the central puzzle-solving tool in The Bradwell Conspiracy, not unlike the portal gun in the Portal series. The 3D printer has a simple one-in/one-out inventory system: collecting pieces of Bradwellium (and objects made out of it) will give you one unit tha𒐪t can be used to create any object you have aꦯcquired "blueprints" for, that is, any object you've previously collected.
In the early chapters, you'll mostly be scouring the facility for chunks of Bradwell🌼ium and then printing planks to make bridge or pipes to repair systems damaged by the explosion. At the end of each chapter, all of your collected blueprints and Bradwellium are returned, meaning each new chapter is a closed system of puzzles to solve. It's a nifty way to re-imagine the inventory system of traditional adventure games. Instead of findi💮ng all of the items you need and using them the correct way, there's also an added layer or figuring out the items you need to create to solve the problem. There's a level of creativity you don't often get with these kinds of linear adventure/puzzle games.
Contextualizing The Hint System
Of course, every classic adventure game needs some kind of hint system to nudge you in the right direction when you get stuck, but The Bradwell Conspiracy has a particularly clever way of keepin🐼g hints au🗹thentic and diegetic to the story.
Amber will respond to every picture you send her. This is most often used for story beats as you progress through the🌊 facility, but it can also be used to get a hint when you can't find the way to go. Amber is a Bradwell employee and knows a lot more about what's happening than she lets on, so sending her a picture of a dead-end often prompts a hint ✅about where to go next to look for a solution.
It's a clever, unobtrusive way to make getting hints seamless with the story, as Amber is constantly talking to you about your objective and what she is doing on her end. It may not seem like a particularly strong hook, but it kept me immersed in the story even as I foun♔d myself walking in circles looking for the solution to my current puzzle.
Everyone Loves A Conspiracy
The first three levels barely start to scratch🔴 the surface of what exactly the Bradwell Corporation is up to. There's something global, possibly cataclysmic in the works, and I was already getting the sense that Amber shouldn't be trusted, nor should I trust my ow🌱n character for that matter.
The stranger-in-a-strange-land story has always worked well in secret subterranean facilities abandoned by greedy corporations and fanatics that have gone off the deep end. Bioshock told that story pretty much perfectly. More recently, Control waded through the same waters. I really don't mind revisiting that type of setting in The Bradwell Conspiracy. Call me a su🎃cker for a good mystery, but I can't wait to find out what the heck these creeps have been up to.
The Bradwell Conspiracy will be available on PS4, Xbox𝔍 One, Switch, Steam, and Apple Arcade later this fall.