Revisiting his iconic puzzle game after 11 years, an indie developer was so stumped by his own work that he thought he'd shipped a bug

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"I don't even remember ever building this puzzle"

Antichamber
(Image credit: Demruth)

The developer of the surreal puzzle game Antichamber has revealed he recently got tricked by his own work after playing the title many years after its release. 

Alexander Bruce, the solo developer of Antichamber, has shared on Twitter that he recently went back to play the 2013 title and thought he'd discovered a bug when he couldn't get past one of the game's puzzles. "Running around in Antichamber again, I solved something, didn't end up where I wanted, and was like 'What the fuck? Did I ship a bug here? What happened?'" the developer recalls.

As it turns out, Bruce's game was working just fine. Instead, the developer had forgotten how to solve the puzzle he designed all those years ago. In the same tweet, Bruce writes: "And then [I] realised that no, it's just the game. I got tricked the same as everyone else because it's been sooooo long." 

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If there's anything to take away from this situation it's that Antichamber's puzzles must be pretty good if even its creator couldn't solve them. 

To be fair, it has been 11 years since the game launched, and probably even more since Bruce actively worked on the title. To make matters worse, the developer says he doesn't even remember building the puzzle, let alone how to solve it: "My memory is not as infallible as it used to be, I guess! Getting old, amirite?" 

If you've never heard of Antichamber, it's a PC game that has an 'Overwhelmingly Positive' review rating on Steam. It's full of mind-bending puzzles that players must solve to progress through the game, and if the puzzles weren't enough to confuse you, the game also features surreal Escher-like visuals that are sure to make things even more difficult.  

Find out what hidden gems we've got to look forward to with our upcoming indie games list. 

Hope Bellingham
Hope Bellingham
News Writer

After studying Film Studies and Creative Writing at university, I was lucky enough to land a job as an intern at Player Two PR where I helped to release a number of indie titles. I then got even luckier when I became a Trainee News Writer at GamesRadar+ before being promoted to a fully-fledged News Writer after a year and a half of training.  My expertise lies in Animal Crossing: New Horizons, cozy indies, and The Last of Us, but especially in the Kingdom Hearts series. I'm also known to write about the odd Korean drama for the Entertainment team every now and then.  

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