Score: 7 out of 10

Schrodinger’s Cat and the Raiders of the Lost Quark was developed by Italic Pig. It originally was released on the PC in September of 2015 but was later released for consoles (PS4, XBO) in May of 2015. Schrodinger’s Cat is a 2D puzzle platformer with some unique mechanics.

Schrodinger’s Cat takes place inside a Particle Zoo of a Nucilus of a cell. It’s up to Schrodinger to capture all the escaped Leptons, Gluons and Bosons Particles. In order to capture them he has to use four of the six quarks.

The mechanic of using the quarks is the unique part of this game. Throughout the levels there are these red, blue, yellow, and green tiny critters hanging about. As you walk near them they gravitate toward you and start following you around. The red quarks are called Bottom Quarks, green are Top Quarks, blue Down Quarks, and yellow are Up Quarks. each one relates to either a trigger or a bumper button. You use three quarks at a time to use the quarks’ abilities. For example; three Up Quarks, or yellow, create a temporary helicopter. One Top, one Up, and one Bottom make a net that carries the incapacitated particle away to wherever they belong. It doesn’t matter which order you call the quarks they make same thing. Yellow, Blue, Yellow still makes the same missile that Yellow, Yellow, Blue make or even Blue, Blue, Yellow. Doing the math, or counting the move list on screen, that leave you with 14 abilities that the four main quarks can do. That’s a lot better than the 50+ combinations it could have been.

One really nice thing is when you use a quark it’ll respawn where you picked it up. The downside there is you have to backtrack. I found myself backtracking a lot anyway because I kept getting lost. The biggest complaint I have about the game would be the levels are a little too big. A map at the entrance of the area, next to the sign with the number of enemies, would have helped. Searching the levels for that last Gluton or Charm Quark for what seems like hours can really deter someone from continuing.

Click image to enlarge

I like artstyle, very bright colors. The humor of the game is a little bit and miss 99% of the jokes where science jokes and since I wasn’t a science major in college, some went right over my head. That’s not necessarily a bad thing. I’m a fan of dad jokes and the jokes are very dad jokey, if you’re dad was a particle scientist. The voice acting reminded me of the old Sam & Max games. Not in really what was said but how it sounded. Again not a bad thing.

Overall Schrodinger’s Cat and the Raiders of the Lost Quark is a fun game. Unfortunately because of the large levels, it’s not a pick up and play for a few minutes that this style of game really needs to be. Schrodinger’s Cat is $9.99 on Xbox One, Playstation 4, and Steam.

*Code Supplied by Publisher*