Nihilumbra

Nihilumbra
75
Metacritic
88
Steam
84.021
xDR
Our rating is calculated based on the reviews and popularity of the game.
Price
$2.39
Release date
25 October 2013
Developers
Publishers
Steam reviews score
Total
88 (2 214 votes)

Discover the beautiful world of Nihilumbra and join Born on his adventure to find himself whilst trying to escape from his inevitable curse. Born was created from the absolute nothingness: The Void. But somehow he separates himself from the black emptiness and appears in the world.

Show detailed description

Nihilumbra system requirements

Minimum:

  • OS: Windows XP/Vista/7
  • Processor: 1.6 GHz
  • Memory: 2 GB RAM
  • Storage: 3 GB available space

Recommended:

Recommended requirements are not yet specified.
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CasualCheetah
CasualCheetah

A fun enough elemental puzzle platformer with some ambiguous philosophical voice-over to accompany your journey. The difficulty of the main game is around the level of an extended tutorial, meaning that it's comfy but generally underwhelming.

That said, the post-game 'void mode' is much more laborious in terms of puzzles and especially platforming, the latter being the weaker aspect of the game. I'd recommend the short, more traditionally structured main campaign, but not the secondary hard mode which has an unfitting emphasis on timing, dying, and repetition.

The Counter of Strikes
The Counter of…

Slow, simple, and uninteresting.

I'm a fan of 2D side-scrollers/platformers (growing up with NES), so I was interested and got this game on a steam sale. I'll list my Pros and Cons now, since for me this game is just very sub-par even for a flash game from the early days of the net (or something you'd find on Newgrounds).

Good:
Interesting idea of using elements to manipulate your environment. Different colours can help you manipulate the environment to navigate obstacles.

Bad:
That first point wasn't implemented with anything too interesting or challenging. The game too often feels like a tutorial where it introduces something new, you use it to overcome the most basic obstacles, then it takes you to the "boss" which is always an extremely slow side scroller.
This game really needed to have continuous scrolling, and not segmented screens... Moreover, this game would have benefited from being more open world, letting you explore and use your powers, coming back with new powers to access new areas. Instead, you just have a bunch of obvious and uninteresting things to overcome.
I played for 20 minutes, and couldn't continue any more out of boredom. Looking up a speedrun on youtube, even the mid-late game content looked super obvious and offered little.
While the art style of the world is pretty, the character sprites are poor for even an amateur level (it looks like there are 5 sprites max for the movement of the character which is essentially a black semi-morphous entity).

Also, there is a voice that narrates everything, it is on almost every screen and I had to mute it. I can't tell if it's pretentiousness, or just bad storytelling. Firstly, the voice acting is mediocre at best (I suppose this is a compliment if it was the dev who did this and not a real voice actor). But it's basically just saying the most basic crap constantly: "YOU ARE NOT AGILE ENOUGH TO PASS HERE" (with reference to an obvious jump you need to make using your power), "THEY ARE COMING TO DEVOUR YOU" (with reference to the slow creature moving towards you, which you just need to jump over).

I'm not sure who I would recommend this one to, perhaps young children, but the tone of the game of being chased by a void and avoiding scary void creatures in a bleak world isn't really something I see them enjoying.

HeatherOnStevia
HeatherOnStevia

Nihilumbra is a quiet game. It's got plenty to do, but the puzzles are kept simple for the story. The thematic use of color-powers in a game named after a philosophy of nothing is no coincidence, and I really love how it explores that philosophical side through some soothing narration and fantastic writing. Once you're done with the game, there are harder challenges to face if you enjoy the mechanics, and an extra bonus that warrants a third playthrough all on its own for me.

I can imagine this game isn't for everyone, but if the footage you've seen looks like it might be your kind of thing, I'm confident in saying it *is* your kind of thing.

Malkav0
Malkav0

Bought in 2015, Nihilumbra quickly reached the statut of "reference" for me. The narration is immersive, the world is both gorgeous and terrible. The setting is very otherwordly, that sense of mystery drove me to want to see further, to guide that little character and see it through. The music is awesome and haunting.
The mechanics and puzzles are pretty clever, innovative, and I quickly understood why it's not a controller game, it's built around a mouse. Especially in the endgame, while in void mode, some puzzles are brutal, but never really rage-inducing or impossible. And there's not too many like this.
As for the story it unravels... The journey was worth it to me. I left with an everlasting feeling of poetry and art. And satisfaction of making it through at 100%.
In terms of play time, look to mine, around 10h for 100%, of you're very good at puzzle games to begin with and taking your time to enjoy the scenery.
To this day, Nihilumbra remains not known to many, and I bring it up regularly in conversations about hidden gems of indie gaming ^^

Tarbosh
Tarbosh

The voice actor doesn't sound like a professional and gets irritating quickly. Once we turned off the voice and just read text, the game still was disappointing. The puzzles were simple and boring and my wife and I had more fun watching our cat bat at the mouse like an idiot. Two thumbs down.

Palidian
Palidian

Paint things with different colors to imbue them with different properties like bounciness or stickiness. It's an interesting idea but alas the game never takes it anywhere and most of the puzzles are very straightforward. Wait for a sale.

Jean François
Jean François

General

This game is a nice casual puzzle platformer (well, the main story is, anyways). I really find the art charming and nice to look at. The story itself is somewhat captivating at first, but I'll be honest, I thought the ending was a bit of a let-down. I expected a way bigger payoff than there actually was. I gotta give points for attempting to add engaging narration, but I often found it out of place or awkward at times. Good effort, but execution needs just a little bit of polish next time.

Gameplay

Without giving too much away, I found the core puzzle mechanics to be entertaining. The game does suffer from some annoying bugs, though. There were times when projectiles or even my character bounced the wrong way despite the angle or inputs that I was giving the game. There were also times when I was stranded at a checkpoint because a monster was killing me as soon as I spawned in. Not debilitating bugs, but very frustrating especially when doing the hard puzzles after beating the game.

Oh yeah, the story. The story mode is too easy. It would've been nice if some of the more challenging post-story mode puzzles were thrown in to the actual story mode.

Verdict

Not a bad title, but not one I would recommend full-price to my indie-loving friends. Get it on sale if you think you need another very short puzzle platformer in your life. Otherwise, you're not missing out on too much at this point.

RiptideRyan
RiptideRyan

its a great game, just dont try to do any of the corrupted zones(not fun)

Choleric Friday
Choleric Friday

It represents the nihilistic philosophy without trying to be too edgy.

Loved it.

WarriorFuzzlet
WarriorFuzzlet

A sweet little puzzle platformer in which you control a cute void creature trying to escape the all-consuming Void of doom. You collect a range of abilities on the way which you use to traverse the levels by painting the landscape with colours to change its properties. Set across five distinct regions or world, each with eight levels to navigate. The game has a nice difficulty level and progressively gets harder as more beasties are introduced and you have to learn to combine the colours to successfully complete puzzles.

The character is charming, the environments are pretty and the game has a great atmosphere. The controls are very nicely done and the soundtrack is just gorgeous. I personally found the VO a little too strong for my tastes, but that was easy to rectify in the audio settings. A solid and satisfying little game with a dark but enjoyable story mode, which once complete unlocks Void Mode - a super hard campaign where you work to undo all the damage the Void did in its relentless pursuit of you through main game. It's a clever idea, a whole new set of levels and puzzles to master, effectively doubling the length of the game. I've heard there's a really good reward for completing it too, but I'm yet to unlock it since it's rock solid and I keep dying many gruesome deaths! An excellent challenge!

skwerl56767
skwerl56767

I have mixed feelings about this game. On one hand, I like the concept and the creature designs, but on the other, there were several places where I expected more. I give it a 3/5. I broke down my reasons, for the curious.

Genre: I would classify the game in two parts. Story mode (your first playthrough) is like an interactive visual novel with a platforming elements. It is extremely casual. Void mode (unlocked after beating Story mode) has more platforming and puzzles with a fair bit of crucial timing, and has no extra story.

Length: It took me 4-5 hours to beat Story mode. Void mode took almost twice that long.

Plot: The plot, as a synopsis, is very interesting. Unfortunately not much else is given during gameplay; the storytelling is pretty lackluster and delivered by a very deadpan narrator. The only lore we learn is a few details about each enemy encountered in the game, the fact that the enemies are also born from the Void, and the implication that the game takes place after the end of a civilization. Then we have the title of the game, which is "nihilist" and "umbra" put together: a description of the protagonist. Ordinarily this would work just fine for a game that has no focus on the story, but the Story mode has so little in it that I'm left wanting more writing than there was.

Narrator: This game has a narrator, but he isn't humorous or particularly dramatic. He is very deadpan and sounds disinterested. His inflection changes little throughout the course of the game, and I can't tell what the devs were going for with him; he constantly switches between insulting you, helping you, and making neutral comments about what you're doing. It can be annoying. Thankfully he has his own volume option in the settings, so you can set him to be more like ambiance if you want and just read the text in the game, but I personally would have liked something more energetic and consistent, as narration does add to the experience.

Art: Nihilumbra features an art gallery that you can unlock through continued gameplay (I'm not sure how but it does). The assets here are quite nice, as is with most concept art. The entity design (the protagonist, Void, and enemies) is great as well: clear, well-animated, and both pleasing and minimalistic. I especially love the swirling design of the Void and the creature designs (the Shyponith is a personal favorite)! The mechanical objects in the game (pistons, boxes, buttons, etc.), menu art and backgrounds are fairly good as well. However, I can't say the same for the in-game background art, nor the cutscene for finishing each level in Story mode. If you've used Photoshop or a similar program before, you're going to recognize brush presets, airbrushing effects, and pattern assets in the level art. Maybe most people don't notice this, but as an artist I think it could have been far more polished. It didn't quite seem to fit the clarity and style of the other assets, and felt rushed. I have the same to say about the short cinematic shown for finishing each map: the animation is very basic and not much fun to watch. Something much more intense could have been whipped up to emphasize the destruction of each biome as the Void chases you.
The game has HD textures as an option and I have a 4k screen, so I'm guessing the assets don't accommodate for high resolutions, which would make any rasterized work look terrible, so I'm cutting it some slack, especially after viewing the art for the levels in the gallery: the much smaller images looked far better.

OST: The sound design is quite good! It's orchestral, and there aren't many songs, but it isn't tiring. Although I will say this: the song that plays during each "the Void is chasing you" level and the credits is quite dramatic compared to the slow side-scrolling, making it a bit comical. I think those parts would have been better if the levels were longer so the scrolling could move faster, creating some excitement that fit the music.

Controls: The controls are easy to learn and master. You run, jump, select colors, and paint surfaces with the selected color. That's it. I've only had one issue with the controls and their handling, and it's more of a curiosity that's easily fixed: mouse acceleration, or lack thereof, I can't tell. Your mouse may handle weird when you first start the game, and windowed vs fullscreen affects this. When I first started, I was in fullscreen mode, and my mouse moved like it had a ton of acceleration; changing the sensitivity in the game didn't help much. I was able to play by simply maximizing the mouse's DPI though and changing the in-game sensitivity accordingly. When I switched to windowed mode, I had to reset my DPI, and the mouse moved fine again.

Gameplay: I haven't run into any gamebreaking bugs. Each puzzle seems well-tested, and if something is particularly difficult, it's obviously not the intended solution (there are a few exceptions in Void mode as it *is* the Hard difficulty). There are only a few minor things I've noticed during play:
One is that sometimes when bouncing on level ground covered in Green color, I occasionally bounce to a sharp left or right, as if I hit a slanted surface instead of a level one. It's killed me once or twice but never made anything unnecessarily difficult.
The second is that the magnets in the City levels can be a little finicky, especially near the end of Void mode. It can be hard to time your jumps to turning them on so you don't die. I'm not sure if this is intentional or not though since those parts are meant to be difficult.
The third is, if I make a Crawlaggar (the first enemies you meet, the scoot-scoot guys) slide on Blue color toward a pit with the wall above it covered in Brown color, and the pit is narrow enough that he'll hit the wall first before sliding down, he may get stuck in a temporary collision loop where the game is both trying to make him stick and fall at the same time. The physics corrects itself very fast though, and it's hilarious to watch, so I can't complain.
As far as actual gameplay goes, the Story mode is, sadly, very bland. The game is extremely linear, and the first playthrough is *very* relaxed and casual, so much so that you hardly have to pay attention to play it. By contrast, the Void mode you unlock for completing it has actual puzzles that engage you. I haven't been stumped by a single puzzle, but taking my own puzzle gaming experience into account, I would say they're decently challenging. Each puzzle makes good use of the colors you've collected in Story mode, and some of them ask for good player agility as well. A few are annoying about how acutely-well-timed your moves have to be, but they're outnumbered by less frustrating puzzles. Only a couple of times have I struggled with passing a puzzle I knew the solution to. The game's side-scrolling isn't too bad either; there is only fixed movement on the levels where the Void chases you. The rest of the time, it alternates between instant-switching (as if you're moving from room to room) and following you smoothly through the area.
Additionally, I should note that the game has no lives, stamina, health points, or anything like that. You take 1 damage to die, and the enemies dish out 1 damage. The checkpoints are many and well-placed, including during Void mode, and you can die as many times as you like!

Collectibles: I shouldn't neglect to mention this: *there are no collectibles*. The only things you collect throughout the entire game are the colored flowers in Story mode. There is apparently an Easter Egg, as there's an achievement for it, but I haven't found it. You do unlock a bonus "language" when you beat Void mode, but I didn't care for it much.

That's pretty much all I have to say. The plot, background art, and Story mode tempted me to give this a 2/5, but I threw in an extra point for those creature designs. They're fantastic!

Lerppupeppu
Lerppupeppu

Work of art from the tip of its toes to the top of its head.

xyztiger
xyztiger

This game reminds me of LIMBO. Very enjoyable!

Eyva_The_Dragoness
Eyva_The_Dragoness

This game is brilliant!
The music and sound effects are amazing and graphics are gorgeous, story is beautiful and very engaging , the levels are well balanced as well as the achievements!
I love this game and reccomend it to everyone

Dalesh
Dalesh

This game is outstanding . It's very successfully combined an action platformer and a puzzle game. I was disappointed when i went through the game way too easily , but after I was playing void mode I changed my thought .The soundtracks are stunning and it stuck in my mind. The story is deep ,full of emotions and wisdom. Plus, the end is wonderful plot . I recommend all to play this game .It's really enjoyable.

TheFalconer
TheFalconer

The verbal narrative of this game (in both written and voiceover) ruins any mystery and suspense for me. It is used alternatingly between overexplaining the rather obvious mechanics of the game (which could be fun to figure out by themselves) and trying to set a mood by giving you negative affirmations. It tells more than it shows. Compare this to a game like Limbo where you figure everything out by experiencing it and the developers have confidence in the world they put you in. I found the control and flow of the game a bit clunky as well (control of the character as well as the scrolling), something I could have oversight with if the story had been more interesting and not so anxiously forced upon you.

virotti
virotti

I really enjoyed this game. The sound effects, music and graphios are great, and the game runs fine on old computers (Intel HD 3000 grraphics for me, at the moment).

The voiceover is very well made but I found some of the later messages too negative. They should have used this resource more carefully, without overdoing it.

I did not feel like playing Void Mode for long, but it offers extra challenge if you like that. Normal mode had ok difficulty and it was fun to play. If you want to use a controller, it won't work well, as the game requires mouse action for uising the character's powers, so I ended up giving up on using a controller and used the mouse and keyboard without any issues.

Very good game overalll, worth your time!

Haplo
Haplo

The first part is great. Usual platformer, I want to give good mark... BUT!..... But the "Void mode" is for mazohists. It is hard not because of you need to make unusual decisons which hard to see or you have broken hands, but because of pixel hunting and not synchronized enemies.
For example, to get achievement "Pacifist", you may be genius of controlling this invalid main hero (control is a hell here), but if you have bad synch of enemies — you fold. try again.... Dear developers, or make contollability of hero very sensible, like in a Super Meat Boy for example, or don't make levels with pixel hunting.
The second part of game makes me REALLY mad. So... negative mark.

QuoththeSkaven
QuoththeSkaven

Very atmospheric and engaging mechanics. Not really a puzzle game because the puzzles are too easy, but fun enough as a platformer that sometimes makes you think. The narration adds atmosphere at the cost of occasionally being annoying. Overall I'd say this was easily worth the price of admission.

SkeltalFlamingo
SkeltalFlamingo

The voice acting made me cringe. The gameplay was not as fluid as I had hoped, so it just wasn't that fun for me to control the character.

L
L

Good indie platformer. Simple and beautiful

demandwriter
demandwriter

Nihilumbra is difficult but very rewarding.

tukan10 [isr]
tukan10 [isr]

nice relaxing game with good story

The Sacred Voice
The Sacred Voice

I was gonna give this a tentative recommend (if it was on sale) after finishing the Story Mode... and then I played Void Mode, which I cannot recommend to anyone that isn't into aggravatingly difficult platformers. The Story Mode is very short and sports a casual level of difficulty, while the plotline is basic but with a nice theme. However, the Void Mode is absolutely horrendous. No learning curve, no ramp up, just crushing levels of difficulty straight from the off.

I'll be honest, hardcore platformers are not my genre at all so maybe this is just a mismatch of taste to game experience, but I think the thing I found so frustrating was that, while the puzzles in Void Mode are interesting and challenging, the execution of the puzzle solutions is mind-blowingly tedious. They frequently require good reactions and a single small mistake kills you and sets you back to the beginning of the level, which means playing through previous, also horrible, puzzles to have another go at the one you were stuck on. I could often see the solution after a few tries, and I think a good puzzler should make the solution easy to execute once you figure it out, but instead the developer opted to make the solutions nightmarish to execute, which just made Void Mode an exercise in patience, persistence and, inevitably, frustration. One particularly frustrating section requires you to lead a monster through a series of elements using your powers to get it through the sections with you. On paper this is interesting, but every time you make a mistake and need to reset the puzzle by killing the monster then you have to wait for it to die from the fire power (which takes several dull seconds) to get the monster to respawn. However, you could also screw up the respawn time and trigger the monster aggro early, meaning you then have to wait for THAT one to die. This kind of nonsense just had me go "nope", so I'll leave this to people with more patience and a willingness to tolerate frustrating elements that aren't even part of the puzzle solutions.

vilieto
vilieto

To put it bluntly, it's a very rough concept style of Limbo-inspired Seasons after Fall.
The story has potential, however I found the narration quite nagging with the whole "You're nothing" being repeated every 5 min. The gameplay and idea was very similar to Seasons after Fall, which I happened to play right before Nihilumbra, so this felt like an unfinished game visually and lack of controller support didn't help it.
If you can manage through the quite boring basic mode, you'll get access to more difficult ways to play the game, but I wouldn't recommend it if you've played Seasons after Fall.

RavenLight
RavenLight

First half is awesome with an interesting line of thought and plenty of checkpoints. The second half will make you scream foul language that would make your grandma smack some teeth outta your face as you violently throw your keyboard into the nearest wall. Lots of blind deaths and not enough checkpoints by far, not to mention some of those few and far between checkpoints are in stupid, hard to reach, places. This game has the coolest ideas, colors that change the world? Awesome. Developing life and a heart? Brilliant. Figuring out the puzzle, but dying anyway over and over and over...? Violent and destructive outbursts even from patient monks.

Farrier
Farrier

Very fun platformer that has some cool mechanics to it. Can be a tad frustrating later on with some little hiccups here and there but nothing game breaking. Would recommend it to anyone. Definitely a hidden gem.

Djinnifer
Djinnifer

Excellent puzzles. Excellent story. Excellent game play. Excellent artwork. Just... excellent.

Taber
Taber

This game calls itself a Puzzle Platformer, but it's really neither of those things. It takes simple platformer mechanics and implements them as if they were puzzle mechanics which feels incredibly clunky. The brown surface that lets you stick to walls is NOT a puzzle mechanic, it's a wall jump, but it feels terrible to execute. I really feel this is the worst game I have ever played on Steam.

Ristilukki
Ristilukki

A small hidden gem with simple and not-so-simple puzzles, a interesting story and a beautiful art.

I played the game through and enjoyed. Most of time at least. Sometimes I wanted to throw my computer out of the window because I was stuck in a puzzle. Still worth. I'm a huge fan of puzzles and problem solving, but if you aren't you might want to skip this game.

TΔps
TΔps

I view this as an impressively high effort troll and its certainly not for everyone. The first playthrough is basically a strange guided meditation with easy but fun puzzles and really friendly level design. The second run (void mode) is suddenly the most hard core puzzle platformer getting you killed multiple times around every corner. I personally am most likely not going to put up with void mode but give this still a thumbs up because its an indie game with nice music and the mechanics are solid. I recommend this only if you are open to the weird and charming first experience which cant be skipped and if you are looking for a hardcore puzzle platformer.

Dante from Devil May Cry
Dante from Dev…

Can't say I enjoyed Nihilumbra, it's not engaging nor challenging. More clunky and simplistic than anything else and as far as being a "puzzle platformer" I'd have to disagree.

Silverhawk
Silverhawk

A beautiful and emotional short story.

Zen Master
Zen Master

The Void

Life is not a simple journey.
Every action has consequences.
You are not disposed to let the world perish.
You are not going to run anymore.
All this madness must come to an end.
You walk into the infinite emptiness, ready to face your faith.
But then, the Void rejects you.
It leaves you alone.
You are complete.
You are alive.
The journey, the colors, love, anger, happiness, sorrow, regret and forgiveness...
Everything you experienced has filled you.
You are not empty anymore.
The Void is nothing and it has nothing to claim from you.
There's no void inside you.
Now you can go.
You deserve your own life.
You are free at last.

Tezcatlipoca
Tezcatlipoca

Although the main story is a bit short in duration, I enjoyed it very much. Riddles are simple and keep you going without much difficulty. Void mode (unlocked upon finishing the main story) on the other hand seems a bit punishing but is a good challenge if you want to get that "extra mileage" out of the game. For the price (especially when on sale) would totally recomend.

singwhatyoucantsay
singwhatyoucantsay

I've only done the first run (Story Mode) on this game. I'm not going to try Void Mode, because it's a huge step up in difficulty. But I did enjoy this game, even though I found it a bit hard at the "the void is chasing you" levels.

rotatingbigboi
rotatingbigboi

Awesome narration with beautiful artwork. This game can give you a least a hour or more (-^-)

Infestidos
Infestidos

New game+ is aids but game is cool

EsthOr23
EsthOr23

Gameplay.
9/10

Story.
7/10

Characters.
5/10

Difficulty.
6/10

Length.
4/10

Music/Sounds.
7/10

Graphics.
7/10

Replay?
4/10

Buy?
Yes.

++ Unique gameplay.

billey_joe
billey_joe

Great colors and puzzles. And a great lesson Too.

buckman333
buckman333

A really fun, artsy, unique, puzzle platformer game. There aren't very many games like it. Worth a try.

Mat
Mat

Good game, nice design - although it kind of feels like the whole game is a tutorial.

GemTheAngel
GemTheAngel

the game has an amazing story and great art it plays well too but if your looking for a mindless game this isnt it you need to think when doing puzzles and be ready to run from the void

Marcinos1985
Marcinos1985

Good art and mechanics make this game worth to try.

YonJyuNi
YonJyuNi

God, no!

TL;DR: Do not expect, as I did, a game where you will smoothly make your way past enemies, moving your character with one hand and painting its path red, blue, green with the other as it advances, while solving challenging puzzles. The puzzles are just one formality after another, and the incomplete, unchangeable controls scheme take any kind of "smoothness" out of the equation. I just found out this was originally an iPad game, and you should know that the bare minimum to make it playable with mouse and keyboard (i.e. key bindings) was not made.

No controls settings and no key bindings for the abilities. You will have to switch to a qwerty layout if yours is not already, and you'd better be fine with W, A, D (and TAB for the abilities menu), because that's what you're getting. "TAB for the abilities menu?", you might ask, noticing that I haven't mentioned the space key, which holds the supreme advantage over TAB to be right there, under your thumb, when your fingers are on W, A and D. Well, the space key does the same thing as the W key. This is beyond me. And as if this wasn't bad enough, said menu is as slow and impractical as it is beautiful - and it is BUH-yutiful. Of course, you could use your mouse wheel to browse through the abilities, but this is still too slow to do whatever you're supposed to do comfortably. And, for some reason that is also beyond my understanding, they chose not to include the erasing tool in the abilities when you browse them in this particular manner, despite the fact that some puzzles require that you put paint in a certain place and then immediately erase it. So you WILL have to use the TAB menu anyway. Press TAB; move your pointer from where you just put paint to the menu; aim for that erasing tool; move the pointer back to where it was. In other games, it's done by pressing a key - just saying. I guess this could still be acceptable if you had all the time in the world to perform your actions, or if at least the game paused when you display the menu, but this is not the case here.

The "whole" game (i.e. everything you see before the words "The end") is basically a 3-hour-long, narrated tutorial. For those of you who played Bastion, I was not a big fan of the narration in it, but it never annoyed me once through the entire run. In Nihilumbra, it took five minutes for me to ask myself when what looked liked the tutorial / intro was going to end so this guy would shut up (you know, that seemingly one guy who has made the cheesy voice-overs for the trailer of every single English language drama movie in the last 40 years). It turned out what looked like the tutorial / intro was actually the game. So you will be told about twenty times how you (the character) are nothing, and how terrible you feel for doing what you're doing - because yes, the story is also utterly immoral. Which lamentably fails because you (the player) are first and foremost annoyed and therefore not one bit receptive. Well... At least, that's how I felt.

That was the "narration" part of "narrated tutorial", now for the "tutorial" part... The level design is terrible. The levels are short (not complaining since they are also painful, but it's usually a bad thing); the puzzles are simplistic and yet the solutions are hard to implement because of the aforementioned terrible controls; it's either no scrolling and you have to be cautious when exiting a screen because you have no idea what's right in front of you, or it's forced scrolling, and you have to fail most if not all puzzles once to see what they actually look like, and be prepared for whatever clunky sequence of actions they require... Also, despite the fact that your set of abilities grows as you progress, 9 times out of 10 you will use the last one you've unlocked.

So, what we have in conclusion is a puzzle game that's ruined by the appalling simplicity of the puzzles, with elements of platforming / action that are ruined by the appalling controls.

I didn't even bother really trying the so-called "Void mode" that gets unlocked after this ordeal. Was dumped into the first screen; had an enemy jump right at me and kill me; quit.

Adelin
Adelin

This is a great indie game, it has a nice story and a lot of fun and challenging puzzles. I highly recommend it!

«§ëvënPrøxy»
«§ëvënPrøxy»

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https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2194897381

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parogen
parogen

I've come to realize that I do enjoy playing some of the puzzles in Void mode, but I really dislike the "precision" aspect, eg the character movement and some Void puzzles requiring specific game knowledge. One involved timing the duration of a box respawn (unless I just did it wrong). Things like that.

The regular story mode is still just a overly stretched tutorial intended to teach you all the colors and monsters and etc. The problem with trying to review this game is that if you buy this game, you have to play the long story mode which is very boring and simplistic. Once you beat it, you unlock void mode, the actual game, which feels unpolished as experienced in story mode, but also feels intentional.

The is though, as a puzzle game, it succeeds in that I do want to try to beat the Void levels from time to time. Which means the game's Void mode puzzles are rewarding and nontrivial.

Galo
Galo

Great game, nice graphics, interesting puzzles.

Faye
Faye

This game has absolutely stunning visuals. It has a bit of an existential crisis vibe to it, a bit of desperate and edgy. The puzzles are not too hard, yet they make you think from time to time. The controls are really easy and feel natural.
All in all, a masterpiece in all the aspects.

(PS I would love a few of the backgrounds as wallpapers eg the swamp one was gorgeous)

Petr Stránský
Petr Stránský

A game with two very different faces.

You see the first one during the normal playthrough. You'll see a relaxing puzzle platformer, quite easy, maybe too easy. You blast through the five worlds with little resistance, but the puzzle change frequently and it's fun to play.

Then you finish the game and you unlock the second playthrough. The Void mode. With similar levels but very different puzzles. Suddenly the difficulty ramps up to eleven, with super frustrating gameplay and a lot of repetition. You die often and you always go back. You repeat the same puzzles and puzzle steps over and over. Make one mistake, get stuck, start over, do everything again. That's why I hate death in puzzle games. I struggled for a few levels but it was no fun.

Recommended for the first half, thumbs down for the second.

ツméitzᶫᵒᵛᵉᵧₒᵤ
ツméitzᶫᵒᵛᵉᵧₒᵤ

Cu siguranta un joc extraordinar

Darklord BloodySoul
Darklord BloodySoul

Okay, So I played this game for almost 3 hours. I have finished the first portion of it and am now onto the second portion.

Take my word for it, this game has the beauty of "Seasons after Fall", a Soundtrack as simple and awe inspiring as "Hollow Knight" and such an interesting Story, it captivates you almost imeditally.

For a puzzle platformer to have such quality. It is a rare sight among the Indie community.
I love every aspect of it. Marvelous job!

Can only reccommend this to anyone! :D

Archen12
Archen12

The Dog says: Very good game. :D

munchiefer
munchiefer

Quite a nice surprise, to be honest!

I wanted to play it for a while now and I've zero regrets I've spent all day playing it. Cute puzzles, campaign's nice and focused on the story while the void mode allows you to replay the game but all levels have an increase in difficulty. About 7 hours in, and I believe I've got about 3-4 more to go in order to 100% finish the game.

One thing's for sure: it got me hooked and I feel the urge to complete it before going to sleep.

To conclude: If you have the chance to grab this game on a sale and you enjoy slow-paced puzzle-platformers, give it a chance.

I'll be honest with you, I can't remember if I received the game for free or if I bought it. But if I were to pay full price for it (it's 7 eur at the time of writing this) I wouldn't mind doing so.

Burnt Skull Candy
Burnt Skull Candy

I got this game as a bog standard action puzzler with the typical artsy foe symbolism story. The levels were fine but underdeveloped a lot of areas were under utilized and the mechanics were bare bones at best. Use bounce to bounce onto ledges you can jump off to bounce higher.

The story is passable but it's just a typical hero's journey with themes of nature but all this just left me feel like I wasted the few hours it took me to get to the end because I hoping some kind of meaningful conclusion like, Hollow Knight, Her Story, or even Dark Souls.

Then comes the void, a "hard mode" where the levels *are* utilized and colors *are* combined in meaningfully way. Quick erase becomes a important and puzzles often combine the basic elements, but this happens from level one of the Void. Something that never really happened in the main game.

gbors
gbors

Nihilumbra was one of the most intriguing indie game of the early 2010s, with an exciting game mechanic (using colours to change the world's behaviour, eg. creating bumpy surfaces), an ominous, atmospheric presentation and an interesting abstract story.
As far as the base game goes, everything is superb - the puzzles are not too easy but not impossibly complicated either, and the game has a good rhythm which, together with all the positives above, creates an incredible experience. The game is a bit short, but all thumbs up regardless.
Then there's Void Mode, which is basically Nihiumbra's version of New Game+. You have all the tools to start with, and the challenges are harder - the puzzles are notched up by a level (still manageable, and usually very good), and the platforming is much more difficult. That's an issue, as Nihilumbra features all the bad platforming sins: sluggish controls, inaccurate collision detection, unpredictable terrain, insufficient checkpoints - you name it. Then, when you tie yourself into trying some near-impossible sequence a hundred times, you usually realize that there's a better solution, which is much more doable. The game still makes you want to tear your hair out, but at least it's not totally unfair - just moderately.

... and that was the situation when the game was released. Trying to replay it after a few years, I realized that something went very wrong along the way - some of the mechanics are glitched, and certain situations can't be solved. The green colour and the cannons behave more erratically than ever, creating much more unpredictable scenarios - and then eventually I'm stuck for good on Volcano V. Yes, I know how the second puzzle should be solved, and yes, I checked on youtube, and everyone uses the same solution - which doesn't work as the cannon projectile gets stuck before it can bounce. What the hell happened, Dear Creators?

i'm still heartily recommending the game for it's atmospheric magic - but be warned about Void Mode.

mdrplg
mdrplg

Physical puzzles related to the narrative.

FatHaggard
FatHaggard

Pretty good atmosphere and reasonably satisfying puzzles. It's just too easy and has really lame narration.

Edit: After beating it, I can say that New Game + is a lot better than the main story and more difficult. Still can't give it a positive review as the entire first playthrough should have been this way. It's basically a 3 hour long tutorial before you get to the good part.

jgono
jgono

Absolutely left limp by some of the worst narration I have ever seen in a game. It is insipid.
You enter the desert level and the narrator bellows out with gravitas
"This place is hot"

Main story levels are so basic, feels like I'm playing a 2 hour long tutorial.

Inno
Inno

A very atmospheric platformer with good puzzles. It looks beautiful and has great narration and music.

kayramayraa
kayramayraa

great visual and story scroll game

HAXED
HAXED

its is suprisingly good i wasnt expecting much but it exseeded my expectations (sorry bad spelling)

haley_jpeg
haley_jpeg

I really wanted to like it, I really did. The idea of some existential life journey to escape “the void” excited the philosopher in me, but it was poorly executed and you could proceed faster through the game than the narrator spoke; not that that was necessarily a bad thing. The narrator sounded so over the top angsty - like a “Rawr XD” kid on steroids - which made me roll my eyes and think “thank god I don’t have to listen to him” as I waltzed through the “puzzles” with ease. There were only about 3 puzzles out of the entire game that actually posed a challenge to me, and even they quickly became more frustrating than challenging. To make things worse, the save points are not very clear at all. I exited the game after reaching a checkpoint, as I had just completed one of the few challenging parts and needed a break from the game’s monotony. I came back later to find out I apparently did not “save” in the right spot and had to repeat parts of the level. That was when I decided to push through my grievances and finish the game in one sitting, solely for the fact that I did not want to risk losing progress again (I most definitely paused the game to take breaks though, hence why it shows I have 6 hours).

That being said, the design is beautiful and the game’s concept is still intriguing enough to make me write this review. I also have yet to try “The Void” mode (and still am unsure if I ever will), but from reading other reviews people say it is far better than the main story.

So while I do think saving up to buy a similar - arguably better - platformer is a wiser decision, for how inexpensive Nihilumbra is I say:

If you’ve read this far, just buy the damn game. If you don’t enjoy playing the game, maybe you’ll enjoy writing a semi-satirical review of it later; I know I did.

marshmallow_kitty4
marshmallow_kitty4

short, but amazing game. The voice soothes while guiding you through the different places, and the game itself is very beautiful!

kaltaron
kaltaron

A platformer/puzzle game but I can't use my controller or rebind the keyboard. Meh. Pass.
I'll just watch a video of it.
For some reason I couldn't even get the first use of colour to work...

Blesus
Blesus

Good story, decent mechanics, I really liked the music, good designs.
EDIT:
Replaying the game again, it is a little boring and Void Mode is a little bit too hard/confusing, but I still recommend the base game.

Trent W. Buck
Trent W. Buck

The voice-over guy sounds like a super-serious Metal Gear Solid character reading a Nietzschean children's book.
"Snake... you must know... Spot can run... but existence is meaningless... both for Spot... and for you..."

MashuQ
MashuQ

This game is trash.

If there were no voice narrator or no hint, maybe this game would get a positive feedback

BUT THOSE HINT AND THAT NARRATOR KILLED THIS AND MADE THIS GAME A SHIT

Silvery158
Silvery158

It is an interesting concept of a story wrapped with platforming elements. while intuitive it never gets beyond simple for the first part. the second part(void mode) is from my perspective needlessly difficult for a game where the story is its value. A non spoiler example is that void mode you have to move across 4+ screens with no checkpoint against 4 fast reaction scenarios that insta kill you. If you died then you return to the start of the scenarios. I cannot recommend it as overall was lacking. On top of the lacking puzzles, the achievements do not work when playing on Linux (64 bit, apparently its been broken since 2013).

mercymuttt
mercymuttt

i remember this game from when i was a little kid, playing it on my moms ipad, and god it is still just as wonderful as i remember. the story, the art, everything about it is so beautiful and pleasing to the eye, and i honestly was challenged by it still. 10/10 game honestly, i have such fond memories and i was not disappointed

Epic Lad
Epic Lad

Nihilumbra tries a bit too hard to be "deep and meaningful" without ever posing a challenge to the player. The game felt more like an interactive philosophy lecture to me than a game. That recipe CAN work, but you've gotta make it a more "passive" understanding for this form of communication to feel natural in my opinion.

Either way, not my jam!

Zoe
Zoe

Nihilumbra is a weird game.

I mean that in quite a literal sense - you play as nothing. At least at the start.

Allow me to elaborate-
In Nihilumbra you play as Born - An entity created from the void, from. Nothing. You are nothing, you are empty.
Born takes on the shape of a scarecrow he finds. And the void, missing part of itself, chases you down destroying everything in its wake.

The narrator makes sure to drill these concepts into your head at the start. That you are indeed nothing, that all you do it bring destruction.
However, throughout the course of this game you find colours - These take the form of abilities which you can use. And from those, you create stuff. You affect the world around you. You become.. Something. There's a bit more to it, but i'd be spoiling it if I described it here.

It serves as a beautiful yet simple metaphor for growth, and that you aren't defined by the environment you come from. Paired with the art and music, the game is. Really something. It's a small underground game, but it's definitely one of my favourite games of all time.

The gameplay consists of puzzle platforming - you use the environmental abilities which you find along the way, to affect the environment and.. solve puzzles. I think they still hold up, although some of the ones in the game's unlockable challenge mode are a bit brute-forcey and unfun at times. Majority of the game is great, though.

The aforementioned art and music stick out. They're beautiful. You can even view the concept art, or change the music to a beta version after completion of the game to really see the process behind something like this. It's really nice, something I wish more games did.

I'd recommend checking this game out to anyone, rlly.

aceredshirt13
aceredshirt13

I wasn’t impressed by much about Nihilumbra at first, but I was willing to give it the benefit of doubt. Yes, the voiceover wasn’t very well done. Yes, the puzzles were interesting to try and get past but also at times felt as if I’d played similar games for free on websites like Miniclip and Cool Math Games back in elementary and middle school. But the reason I was interested is because the story suggested, to me, at least, a really interesting example of nihilism. This little character was going all over this abandoned, lonely world, seeing all these sights as they did, eternally running from this wall of darkness that was chasing them, and what I wanted to happen was for the game to essentially be about accepting death, with the knowledge that you’ve seen so many things you wanted to see, and that death isn’t something to be feared. I’m very afraid of death, so I try not to think about it, and the fact that the game seemed to be a rare example of positive nihilism in media (i.e. life might not have a meaning, but so what? Find meaning in helping others, and having fun, and making this possibly meaningless life as good as possible for everyone else while they live it) made me forgive it for its other faults. But then, at the end of the game, when the protagonist has reached the end, and the narration speaks of them finally accepting death, suddenly the wall just doesn’t kill them? And they live? It’s been a long time since I played through that story part of the route, but I remember being incredibly confused as to why the ending was the way it was, and it felt like a real cop-out from what I thought the game’s message would be. Because of that, the story instead comes off as pretentious while also mangling whatever message it thinks it was trying to achieve. With the one thing I’d kept playing for now abandoned, I have to say that I wouldn’t recommend this game. You’ve probably played a hundred puzzle platformers like it, and while the visuals are nice, the narrative is disappointing, so there’s really nothing new for you to see here. Granted, there are still several puzzle-based achievements I have yet to get, but to my knowledge, I’ve already seen the vast majority of the storyline. Should I play those levels and my opinion change, then I will come back and alter this review accordingly.

garwert
garwert

What makes a good 2D platformer?
Certainly not unpolished core mechanics, endless hand-holding* and attempts to convey a theme with pretentious, yet hollow lines of monologue. Having completed Nihilumbra to 100%, I can confirm all three of those are a part of the game. While it's hardly overpriced, for me it did not deliver on the most basic levels of entertainment, especially when I again and again had to face insufferably uninspired lines about our inner selves - though I cannot overlook the competent voice acting.

And going through the Void mode - an effective NG+, the flaws are more apparent than ever, thanks to drastic changes in difficulty. On the note of hand-holding - it is massively redundant, yet only exists in base game - in NG+ you get zero of it, even when encountering mechanics for the first time.

Would not recommend, there are better ways to spend your time and money.

Anonymous
Anonymous

Interesting game. Nice graphics.

Darlantan
Darlantan

This is one of the games of all time.

Bastioned Nest
Bastioned Nest

It's pretty alright!

Short and sweet, decently clever puzzles, great music. The narrator takes a little to get used to, but he's not half bad.

You can easily beat it in one sitting, so if length is very important to you, this may not be what you're looking for. However, there are 100% completion requirements that'll have you revisiting levels and playing harder versions of them, if you wish to get every last cent of your money's worth. For me, I'm satisfied with just the main campaign.

Special shout out to the level design. Sure, it feels barren, but that's the whole point in a game about nihilism.

Xikelle
Xikelle

I feel like this game could have benefitted from less narration. The narration hand-holds the player every step of the journey, when just allowing the world itself to do its storytelling, and let the player form their interpretation, would have been a much more interesting experience.

The narrative isn't the only place that it's clear the developers have one specific vision of how this game is to be experienced and enforce it.

Nihilumbra is a title where the player character unlocks new abilities over the game. My understanding is that this design choice usually broadens the ways you can interact with and traverse the world and consequently the challenges which the devs can present you. In Nihilumbra's case, each ability is a key for a specific lock. It was rare in my playthrough of the normal game where I found a way to use the abilities to progress in a way other than what was prescribed. Far more often the game restricts what abilities are viable.
The two most obvious ways this is done is firstly by how not long after you get a new ability, a new enemy is introduced that renders that upgrade meaningless. Secondly the hard half of the game explicitly makes enemies immune to certain abilities, reinforcing the idea that this is a puzzle game which will only allow the one solution. That kinda design seems a most peculiar combination with that of ability acquisition.
I'd say it's like the dungeon-specific items of the 3D Zelda games that came before Breath of the Wild, but Nihilumbra doesn't give anywhere near as much time or as many interesting opportunities for each ability before moving on.

Then there's the difficulty. Nihilumbra has been tagged with both casual and difficult at the time of this review. That's because there's the normal game and then there's what the game calls void mode.
The game description tells you the game is designed to be playable by anyone which could explain a lot. If you're trying to ensure that very young children will be able to finish the normal game and will have been told a story, then that would explain the narration and normal mode's difficulty.
To someone who's been playing games for several years, the difficulty of the normal game is boring, and that's coming from someone who doesn't play (self-described) puzzle games often. I'm someone who got stuck at a simple part of Portal 2. XD
Void mode is a massive difficulty spike. A lot of games have a fair number of difficulty options. Nihilumbra feels like it just has sleepwalker and nightmare. Insult to injury is how the narration frames void mode. For all of my playtime, the narration gives it cloying self-loathing, and so frames void mode as a moral obligation as well as a requirement for finishing the game. Guilt-tripping and completionism over a difficulty spike.

The majority of my time with this game had non-existent difficulty, uninteresting puzzles, and an approach to storytelling that shoots itself in the foot. I'm sure there are interesting explorations of the game's ideas somewhere out there, but not here. The sound and visual design aren't strong enough to redeem the rest. So after a few attempts at void mode, I decided I was done with this game.

L☯fi
L☯fi

1/15 STORY
🔲 No story
🔲 Not main aspect
🔲 Bad story
🔲 Average
🔲 Good
✅ It'll replace your life

2/15 GAMEPLAY
🔲 Lifeless / static
🔲 Poor UI
🔲 Average
🔲 Good
✅ Excellent

3/15 DIFFICULTY
🔲 Playing asleep
✅ Some brain usage
🔲 Easy to learn / Hard to master
🔲 Difficult
🔲 Dark Souls

4/15 GRIND
✅ Nothing to grind
🔲 Isn't necessary to progress
🔲 Average grind level
🔲 Only if you care about leaderboards/ranks
🔲 Too much grind

5/15 GAME TIME / REPLAYABILITY
✅ Long enough for a cup of coffee
🔲 Short
🔲 Average
🔲 Long
🔲 To infinity and beyond

6/15 MULTIPLAYER
✅ No multiplayer
🔲 Trashy servers
🔲 Some hiccups
🔲 Smooth and pleasant experience
🔲 Co-op
🔲 PvP
🔲 PvE

7/15 GRAPHICS
🔲 Stuck in the last century
🔲 Low Effort
✅ Average
🔲Good
🔲 Reality 2.0

8/15 AUDIO
🔲 Earrape
🔲 Bad
🔲 Not too bad
✅ Good
🔲 Eargasm

9/15 AUDIENCE
🔲 Kids
🔲 Teens
🔲 Adults
✅ Everyone

10/15 PC REQUIREMENTS
✅ Potato
🔲 Decent
🔲 Fast
🔲 Rich boi
🔲 > NASA

11/15 PRICE
🔲 It's free!
🔲 Not recommended
🔲 Wait for sale
✅ Worth the price
🔲 Best investment ever done

12/15 FREQENT UPDATES
✅ Abandoned
🔲 Last year
🔲 Once every year
🔲 A couple per year
🔲 Every week

13/15 BUGS / CRASHES
✅ None / Not discovered
🔲 Minor bugs
🔲 Can get annoying
🔲 Frequent crashes
🔲 Complete mess

14/15 MISC
🔲 Steam Workshop
✅ Steam Trading Cards
✅ Steam Achievements
✅ Content for Steam Points Shop

15/15 VERDICT
✅ Recommended
🔲 Not recommended

Amazing immersive story. Enjoyed it so much and the puzzles are very well designed, so they are not frustrating, but you have to use some of your brain cells.

kingoflogres
kingoflogres

As other reviews have mentioned, Nihilumbra is a puzzle platformer with a relatively relaxed pace that sees you, as a creature of the Void, traversing different environments. I remember it being quite difficult for me when it first came out, but whether age and experience or the PC port was what did it, I beat the main story without issues on this most recent play-through. It requires very few twitch skills, too, which makes it even more approachable. Is it a great puzzle platformer for people who love the genre and are good at it? Maybe, if they don't mind not feeling too challenged. But it's certainly one I would expect anyone to be able to pick up and enjoy.

That's really a good summary of Nihilumbra overall: is it perfect? No, but there are things to like about it. The story can be heavy-handed as it waxes poetic, but also has genuine moments of emotion and thoughtfulness through its narration. The gameplay isn't too challenging, but I also never expected to spend large amounts of time on it. I was mostly interested in the atmosphere, which is my favorite part of this whole game experience. The sound, story, and gameplay all come together solidly to create a bigger picture which is greater than its parts and well worth two hours of time.

Claricestarling
Claricestarling

Haha, and now unto the void mode. :')

Nekrovski - N66
Nekrovski - N66

Relax and enjoy the melancholy

agriba
agriba

This feels like a game made by a single person who didn't really know how to make a game. The idea is there, but there is no real ability or talent to execute it.

Nihilumbra is mostly a puzzle game with some light platforming where you use your mouse to paint textures on the map that change the physics. And it's the most basic version of that. The maps are made in what feels like a level builder that you'd buy from some software and you'd go on to post it for free online somewhere. Everything is flat and painfully simply. There's certainly no cleverness and at no point will you look at a puzzle and wonder how it's solved. The only question is the execution.

The presentation is just horrendous. THere are some nice painted backgrounds. Props to whoever did that, but otherwise big yikes. The narrator is frustrating and exists only to pretend that there's a narrative. Half his lines are "you feel x, you want y." This game is so devoid of anything it requires an ethereal voice to pop up and tell you what you want or feel. I'd call it college art project, but so much of this feels like a highschooler who got their hands on some level building software.

To the point that the game design is just out the window. Normally for puzzles or platformers, there's clear structure. You get introduced to a simple version of a mechanic, you have to figure it out, and it builds from there. In this game, you do the puzzle stuff somewhat vaguely until you figure it out on your own based on trial and error (except that weird time the narrator just explained it to you) AND THEN you unlock the mehcanic and do the tutorial AFTER YOU'VE ALREADY FIGURED IT OUT.

Forget about being fun, this struggles to even feel like a real game most of the time. It's almost like a jumbled tech demo someone decided to capitalize on by adding voice over.

The only reason it's so positive is that this is a cheap game. But that's still odd because this is a one dollar game. At most. Buying this on sale for three dollars still feels like a rip off.

This game has almost no value and there's no point to ever play it. 2/10.

Pumpky
Pumpky

Very very highly recomended, very cute, challenging but not to challenging, amazing art, great voice, plenty of content, inovative gameplay and very godlike puzzles.

Theblaziken2000
Theblaziken2000

This game is kinda odd. I didn't mind it but I did not find it to be a fun experience and that's why I wouldn't recommend it. Maybe the puzzle levels you get after playing the main campaign are enjoyable but I am personally fine not experiencing them.