The Body Changer is a new puzzle/shooter hybrid game from The Short And The Tall that just launched after a run on Steam Early Access.
I’m not typically one for puzzle games, but I had some free time over the weekend and seeing as how it was the first game in my queue to check out, I decided to give The Body Changer a go. I played it for a couple hours, so my impressions below are from roughly the first quarter of the game. I reached a point where I felt like I had thoroughly experienced the core mechanics of the game and was starting to get a bit bored playing the game.
With that said, even with some third-person shooting mechanics implemented, The Body Changer is not going to shift many opinions as far as genre preferences go. If you like puzzle games you’ll get more out of The Body Changer than someone who does not. If you actively dislike puzzle games, The Body Changer just simply isn’t for you.
In The Body Changer, players take control of SynB robots and guide them around a space station where an anomaly has disrupted the standard operations of the station. To add to the trouble, aliens and mutated SynBs are roving about causing mayhem.
The puzzle mechanics come into play as players shift between the various SynBs at their disposal; each SynB can do something that the others cannot do, so the player must strategically swap between the SynBs to solve the game’s puzzles. A particularly memorable puzzle involved operating a green SynB in one room, triggering tiles to rise up in a neighboring room. Then I was switching to another SynB, in the neighboring room, walking from tile to tile as they rose up, while avoiding the dangerous red liquid.
Combat in The Body Changer involves switching over to a combat-ready SynB who can pick up and use various weapons against the foes that appear throughout the levels. Each enemy can be quickly dispatched with particular combat moves. So, for example, some enemies can be dropped with a simple headshot, while others require you to roll around them and shoot them in the back. Running and gunning can be a little clunky, particularly when it comes to close-quarters-combat with the knife. But to The Body Changer’s credit, the environments are typically big enough to allow you plenty of maneuvering room to kite around enemies as you dispatch them.
As far as I understand it, from The Short And The Tall’s website, The Body Changer was developed by “two guys” so I’m going to be a little lenient on the visual presentation of the game. It accomplishes what it sets out to do, which is deliver a minimalist visual experience, but I really feel that another few layers of artistic polish could have really helped the visuals in The Body Changer really standout. As it is, as nice as some of the character models are, the environments are very bland and I saw a number of graphical bugs that didn’t detract from the gameplay, but they certainly added to the sense that I was experiencing a rough draft version of the game, rather that a fully polished final copy.
The Body Changer didn’t appeal to me for long-term gameplay. The shooting and the puzzle mechanics were alright, but didn’t offer me anything I hadn’t already seen done in other shooters or puzzle games. Ultimately, I can’t recommend the game at it’s current $19.99 price (though it is discounted for a bit to $15.99), it’s just too generic and feels unfinished.
The Body Changer was reviewed using a review copy provided by the developers.
