The Bradwell Conspiracy Review Puzzling The Nerd Stash

Title: The Bradwell Conspiracy

Developer: A Brave Plan

Publisher: Bossa Studios

Genre: Puzzle, Adventure

Available On: Nintendo Switch, PS4, Xbox One, Steam, Apple Arcade

Version Tested: Nintendo Switch

Official Site: The Bradwell Conspiracy

Release Date: October 8th, 2019

Where To Buy: Apple Arcade, Steam, PlayStation Store, Nintendo Switch E-Shop, Microsoft Store

With an explosion, a protagonist buried in rubble, and an intriguing mystery to uncover, The Bradwell Conspiracy grabs your attention immediately. Unfortunately, there are also a lot of aspects that make solving that mystery pretty unfun to do.

How Did I Get Here?

The Bradwell Conspiracy begins very disorientingly. But that’s one of its strongest features. You awake after an explosion at a party for Bradwell Electronics. The company was busy celebrating the launch of its Clean Water Initiative when the explosion occurred. Who are you in relation to this company? What caused the explosion? Why are you alone when the party setting makes it clear there were tons of other people in attendance? This bombardment of questions was swirling through my head as I began. And it’s because of them that I immediately wanted to explore and seek answers.

You can at least surmise that you work for the company. Each employee has a pair of glasses equipped with the company’s electronic guide, who walks you through what to do. It also scans you for injuries. Your vocal cords have been injured from breathing in too much smoke and the Guide advises you not to speak. It’s a small inclusion, but one that I thought was a really clever way to have a silent protagonist.

You find more glasses that belong to other employees as you explore. These give you access to different areas. And it’s not too long after awaking that you meet Amber, another survivor trapped in a different location. She’ll speak to you while you play through. But the only way to respond is by sending pictures via your glasses. She’ll help you solve puzzles, tell you where to go, etc. As this is your only ally outside the robotic Guide, it was important for her to be likable and entertaining. Thankfully, the writing and Rebecca LaChance’s fantastic delivery make her just as such.

Beyond The Set-Up

Be prepared to walk aimlessly, because The Bradwell Conspiracy will have you doing a lot of it. As I said, the only way to communicate with Amber is via photos. But if you don’t know where to go to find the correct photo to take, then you’ll be snapping everything in sight. More than once, I was in the right location for the photo to send her. But I wasn’t positioned correctly or close enough to the right object in order for her to help me. This didn’t happen all of the time. But it happened enough to be annoying.

Taking the correct photo will save your progress and grant you a new objective. This also happens when you solve a puzzle, which I’ll get to later. Here’s where The Bradwell Conspiracy’s technical problems rear their ugly heads. During these moments, the game is hit with a slew of frame rate issues that make your view lag across the screen. It happens only briefly. But when checkpoints come so frequently, it’s enough to take a toll. It’s possible these issues are only present in the Switch version. But this doesn’t seem like the type of game that the Switch wouldn’t be able to run properly.

What We’re All Here For

Where the Portal series has its unique gun to help you solve puzzles, The Bradwell Conspiracy has the Substance Mobile Printer, or SMP. This handy device lets you suck in a certain material created by Bradwell Electronics and print objects in order to solve puzzles. This substance can mostly be found throughout areas in brick form. However, you’ll also find items made of this substance. You can only print items you have the blueprint for, though you obtain an item’s blueprint by simply sucking it up. Not every item comes with a blueprint. I was confused at one point as to why I was sucking up a blueprint-less surfboard when the developers could have just put in a more easily locatable brick.

The SMP is an interesting tool that leads to some neat puzzles. It’s the main draw of the game that unfortunately has some pretty severe limitations. It projects a green outline of whatever shape you have selected. And you’re able to rotate it and fit it where you need it. But it’s only projected close to your eye level unless you’re directly under or above where it needs to go. I became immensely frustrated during a couple of puzzles because the game doesn’t state this.

And I pity you if you get to a puzzle without the correct amount of substance units. Because then you can’t solve the puzzle. And then you’ll have to backtrack and look for more substance to suck up. That’s already no fun, but Amber’s interjections as to why you haven’t solved the puzzle yet make it even worse.

Exploring Is A Pain

Piecing together Bradwell Electronics and the mystery behind it should be tantalizing. And with such a great set-up, you’d think discovering information about the people who work there would serve as forgiveness for wonky mechanics. But that just isn’t the case.

Finding an employee’s Guide Glasses lets you access new areas, but it also gives you access to their tablets and computers. From there you can read recent e-mails to find out about their work. Hooray, e-mails!

If you couldn’t detect the sarcasm, reading through work e-mails isn’t that enticing. You can also listen to voicemails, but you’re stuck on that screen in order to do so. These could have worked liked the audio diaries in BioShock or the pre-recorded messages of Cave Johnson in Portal 2, where you’re allowed to walk around while they play out. But you’re not. Also, these are much less interesting. And it’s this combination with less-than-stellar gameplay that makes The Bradwell Conspiracy a chore to explore.

Verdict: The Bradwell Conspiracy begins with an intriguing premise that’s enhanced by Rebecca LaChance’s voiceover work and the engaging set-up for how you can solve puzzles. But poor mechanics, framerate issues, and the dull pace at which its mystery is laid out cause the game to suffer harshly.