The Turing Test Reviews
As someone who loves games like Portal and The Witness, The Turing Test definitely scratched that familiar puzzle itch, even if it fails to scratch more than the surface of most of its ideas. Its mechanics are solid but largely unoriginal, and its themes and world-building are genuinely great. And while it never reaches the originality and heights of its inspirations, it still manages to deliver an interesting world with one heck of a twist.
A playful examination of the relationship between human and machine, and a focused, entertaining puzzler.
It succeeds in both its puzzles and story, and emerges as one of the nicest surprises of the year
Whether you’re in it for the gameplay or find yourself drawn in by the looming mystery that steadily simmers over in due course, The Turing Test (minus the occasionally hard-to-decipher audio) is a smartly-structured and delicately-arranged puzzle game that knows its boundaries and leaves it to the player to fill in the missing gaps.
It’s definitely bloated, needing a brutal hand to strip out a few dozen of the weaker puzzles. Because in there are challenges that are not only good, but sometimes great. Really satisfying to solve. It’s that they’re too frequently diluted down by a series of chambers far more entertaining for the brief banter between TOM and Ava at the start than the process of completion. As such, it falls a good distance short of the two mighty games it emulates.
The Turing Test is a solid first-person puzzler with an interesting and well-executed premise that provides a pretty enthralling backstory to its central gameplay. The tests you face here may not be quite as mind-bending as we might have hoped for, and they certainly don't force you to look at things from as many different angles as those found in this game's very obvious inspiration, Portal – or even The Witness – but overall, there's still plenty to like here for fans of the genre as long as they're prepared to blast through it all quite quickly and without too many major headaches.
A steady puzzle game elevated by its story and mystery that's never quite original enough to stand out.
The Turing Test can be quite accurately described as Portal meets Soma, exploring similar ideas of AI and selfhood. The trouble is, I suppose, that both those games did each aspect better.
It’s easy to say that The Turing Test gets a passing grade. Lots of thought has clearly gone into how the story plays out, while the puzzles are designed to teach the player without overtly telling you how a new gameplay mechanic works. Little details at the end of each zone and side puzzle flesh out just what’s going on, while the puzzles will test your logical thinking. It’s not without its flaws, but it’s certainly worth a look at for those wanting to scratch that First Person Puzzle itch.
The Turing Test” achieves a rare harmony of gameplay and narrative. It should make one think about the flexibility of the mind and what it means to consider one’s species the apex of creation.
The mechanics are fun and narration is interesting, but the puzzle design is quite basic and the end result is a fun but limited puzzle game.
Review in Italian | Read full review
The comparisons to Portal are many, and obviously intentional, but this smart and ambitious first person puzzler is no mere clone.
The Turing Test delivers not just a worthwhile game but an amazing story that will sit with you long after the credits.
The Turing Test, despite being four years old, still holds up and makes for a perfect Nintendo Switch puzzler
The Turing Test is a short but ultimately memorable experience.
The Turing Test is both a thoughtful meditation on the implications of artificial intelligence, and a competent first person puzzler. Its systems are clever, its graphics make for unambiguous play, and its mechanical focus on logic is satisfying. Structural and pacing issues are certainly present, but they aren't egregious enough to meaningfully detract from the experience.
At first I was rolling my eyes at a blatant rip off of other fantastic games, but by the end I realized this is a great game in its own right.
A solid but not excellent puzzle game. The Turing Test is a nice title, with interesting puzzles and an enigmatic story. Some rooms are complex and compelling, but at the end of the adventure truly memorable puzzles will be less than expected.
Review in Italian | Read full review
If you’re willing to accept a game which is slightly rough around the edges, and will remind you of Portal at every turn without actually being Portal, then The Turing Test could be for you. There’s a lot here to like: a philosophical dialogue about ethics, transhumanism and the singularity, in conjunction with occasionally brilliant design. There’s enough on offer here that I sincerely hope that Bulkhead Interactive make another game, and next time, think slightly further outside the white-panelled box than they did in this endeavour.