When I first played Valve’s Portal, I found it unlike anything else I had played. It took a few simple mechanics and brought them together to create challenging scenarios. Every time you solved a tough test, you felt smart and got a rush from figuring out the solution. After playing Helix: Descent N Ascent, I can confidently say that I’ve finally experienced that same feeling from a puzzle game again after a very long time.
At its core, the game gives you five main abilities: Block, Hook, Drone, Sandglass and Cage. Block conjures a platform in front of you, which can fill gaps or be pushed onto pressure switches, while Hook lets you grapple onto certain pipes and pull yourself towards them. Drone allows you to remotely control a flying robot through narrow openings and across gaps, while Sandglass lets you enter a mirror dimension. Cage is essentially a Poké Ball that you can throw at critters to capture them.
These abilities are used to solve a variety of traditional puzzles, such as reaching things that are out of range, crossing gaps and holding down multiple pressure plates at once. Things start getting really fun when you are given multiple abilities that you can combine and experiment with to solve challenging puzzles.
For example, your drone initially has a limited amount of time before it disappears. By grabbing it with the hook, however, you can keep it active indefinitely while also drawing a snake-like trail behind it. This combination can be used to grapple onto pipes around corners or across tricky paths. You can also use the hook on a block to switch places with it, or grab an empty cage to turn your next throw into a power throw, allowing you to send it much further.
Things start getting really fun when you are given multiple abilities that you can combine and experiment with to solve challenging puzzles
The combinations become even more elaborate when you are given three abilities at the same time. You can throw a cage at the drone to turn it into a flying vacuum capable of sucking up flying creatures, all while guiding it with your grappling hook.
The ability that really stands out in terms of how much it changes the gameplay is the sandglass, as it not only changes the environments around you but also your abilities. For example if you were to activate the sandglass whilst having the cage ability, it would instead allow you to turn into different creatures, with the third ability deciding what you can change to. Having Drone equipped, for instance, lets you turn into flies.
The addictive fun comes from experimenting with these combinations to solve challenging puzzles. The solutions mostly feel logical, with each puzzle building upon what the previous one taught you. Because of that, solving a puzzle genuinely makes you feel smart since you can logically reach the answer without the game handing you hints.
The game generally avoids giving you hints, and you must also piece together its backstory through the different images you find while exploring the world. In this sense, the story reflects the puzzles. You cannot understand everything by looking at one thing in isolation and instead have to consider how all the pieces relate to each other.
The game is perhaps the most memorable due to its the fantastic artstyle, which is one of the best art-directions I have seen recently. It features a black and white, contrasting world that makes everything pop with handcrafted detail. It looks if the detailed art you’d see in comics from artists like Scott Williams has been lovingly brought to life. The impactful animations further complement this, tying everything in a crisp and stunning looking package.
The game generally avoids giving you hints, and you must also piece together its backstory through the different images you find while exploring the world. In this sense, the story reflects the puzzles.
The only thing that prevents it from being an instant classic are the bugs, the developers have fixed quite a few of them before release, but I still ran into a number of game breaking bugs that had me restart the game, however, even that was not enough to stop me from playing and I think it speaks to just how addictively fun the game is.
Another issue I have is that the game’s structure feels a little too authored. The game decides which combinations you are given, rather than allowing you to choose your own loadout and find different ways to solve its puzzles. In my opinion, the developers had a great opportunity to create a unique puzzle Metroidvania, where you gradually unlocked abilities and, as you learned more about them, could backtrack and reach previously inaccessible areas. As it stands, however, the creative side of the journey feels constrained.
I appreciate that there is a lot of content here, and there is something clever about giving each ability combination a dungeon of its own. However, I do wonder whether the game would have benefited from prioritising quality over quantity. One interesting approach could have been to let players choose and freely change their abilities, allowing them to solve problems more organically by giving certain puzzles multiple solutions. Some puzzles could then have been cut, with that time instead being invested in creating fewer but more impactful situations.
There genuinely is a lot that this game tries to do, and I was impressed by just how far it takes each mechanic. However, this ambition seems to have created more work than the developers could reliably commit to, and you can see the lack of polish in certain areas, such as the underdeveloped cutscenes and exploration. The game also features arcade-like platforming minigames which, although they can be skipped, feel out of place. In my opinion, that development time could have been used more meaningfully elsewhere.
I do wonder whether the game would have benefited from prioritising quality over quantity.
Lastly, the controls have a tendency to feel awkward, as the game changes which face button each ability is assigned to depending on your current combination. You might get used to using Hook on a certain button, only to find it somewhere else when you switch combinations. Most disappointing of all, however, is that the game lacks good mouse-and-keyboard support, even though it feels as though it would play best that way.
Whether you are throwing cages or lining up grappling hooks, aiming feels like a core part of the controls, so it doesn’t make much sense that the game has no mouse support, a tool synonymous with precise aiming. Not to mention, the abilities themselves would have felt great across the number row than being placed on random buttons. Sadly, this is not the only game to suffer from this as I have noticed a worrying trend where indie developers are creating games for PC without giving enough consideration to its control options, even when those controls would be a natural fit.
Whether you are throwing cages or lining up grappling hooks, aiming feels like a core part of the controls, so it doesn’t make much sense that the game has no mouse support
Essentially, I think all of this comes down to time management. Had the developers made concessions in certain areas to elevate others, they could have had a much more polished experience on their hands.
Despite all its shortcomings, it is still difficult not to recommend this game. I genuinely haven’t played anything like it or felt this excited to experiment with different puzzle-solving combinations since the Portal games. Without the aforementioned issues, it could have been an instant classic. As it stands, however, it remains a rough gem that is well worth playing.
Review Summary
Despite its rough edges, Helix is a competent puzzle game that captures the joy of exploration and experimentation in a way we haven’t seen for a long time, bringing back memories of games like Portal.
- Experimenting With Abilities is Genuinely Fun
- Challenging Puzzles With Satisfying Solutions
- Gorgeous Hand Drawn Art
- The World Tells An Interesting Story
- Numerous Bugs
- Lacking PC Controls
- Exploration Is a Little Restrictive
