Gravitas for Windows

Free gravity-themed puzzle platformer

Gravitas is a free-to-play adventure game from Galaxy Shark Studios. This puzzle platformer lets you travel around a dimension called the Gallery of Refined Gravity, accomplishing levels and proving yourself a worthy successor of an enigmatic figure known as the Curator. It features full 3D levels and models, with smooth animations making the sci-fi experience immersive.

Playing Gravitas and its story feels a lot like Portal 2, but instead of space warping, you play around with gravity to get to otherwise inaccessible areas and reach new items. More accurately, the gameplay concept feels like Geometry Dash, but in 3D.

Explore the Gallery and survive

Gravitas has the full sci-fi experience nailed right from the intro. You start out in a Pupil Pod, with a pretty standard view of the vast outer space around you. It starts with a tutorial, also facilitated by a handy robot guide much like Wheatley for Portal 2. The in-game assets don’t use high-quality textures, but this is masked by the masterful use of lighting. 

Also, the in-game physics in this game is commendable. It retains a sense of realism even as you shift gravitational fields in different directions, making the characters and the objects bob and weave around as you move them. Once you start playing it, the more it becomes a puzzle-filled walking sim, since dying is really of no consequence—you’ll just restart at the closest checkpoint.

With a free game of this caliber, it’s understandable to want more content. Unfortunately, an entire playthrough of this game is something that can be completed in half an hour or so, depending on how difficult you find the stages. Also, all its parallels with the Portal franchise make the ending slightly predictable, although it takes a slightly more hilarious direction.

A fun short game

If there’s anything that Gravitas sorely needs, it’s a full-length sequel. Sure, a lot of puzzle platformer fans will point out similarities between it and the Portal franchise, but it manages to separate itself the more you play it. For a short project, it has pretty polished visuals and a full playthrough that’s enough to have a conclusion but keep players wanting more.