ChromaGun

My Playtime: 3.2h (100% achievement, finished the game)
Grindy Achievement(s): Yes (1 achievement that takes 0.1h).
Optional Achievement(s): Yes (9 achievements).
Difficult Achievement(s): No.
Intro
ChromaGun is a 3D puzzle game where you are armed with a gun that can shoot colored paint. The main mechanic relies on moving WorkerDroids around by shooting walls with the same color as the droid to pull them in. It has 57 levels in total, spread over 8 chapters.
Pros:
- 57 levels with a new mechanic in each chapter
- Most levels are easy to figure out
Cons:
-Some levels are timed
Specs
AMD Ryzen 7 7800X3D, 16GB RAM, AMD Radeon RX 9060 XT
Should you buy this game?
If you enjoy 3D puzzle games like Portal, buy it on a sale.
In-Depth Review
The Game
Playing ChromaGun feels like playing Portal; it starts off with you signing up for a testing program with a narrator accompanying you. You get a gun, but instead of making portals, the gun shoots colored paint, which will pull WorkerDroids if their color matches the color of the wall. You can paint either the WorkerDroid or the wall, provided that it's not covered by a certain armor.
The game uses the RYB color wheel in its gameplay. You need to know what a color will become if you place another color on top of it. The game might give you this information randomly, but it'll be better to have it memorized during the playthrough. Some levels can be timed and require speed to solve, which will be impossible to finish if you don't know about the color wheel already.
There are 8 chapters in total, separated into 7+ levels each, totaling to 57 levels. The first three chapters are easy to finish, although the difficulty will increase as you play. It's never got to the point where it's impossible to solve, but I did get stuck on some levels a few times. That being said, I still find it to be at the right difficulty for me. You don't need to think too hard or think out of the box to solve them, but they aren't exactly easy either.
Some levels are timed. Although there are only a small number of these levels, I hate it when the game forces you to finish a level in a limited time. I prefer to solve the puzzles at my own pace, and having a timed puzzle like this just means that I have to die several times until I remember everything that I need to do.
The game tries to keep the levels fresh by introducing new mechanics, although they still feel the same after a while. However, I hated the last chapter's mechanic. It requires you to use the gun's ricochet to paint somewhere else. The thing is, it's hard to aim in the direction that you want, and it can be hard to see which wall was colored, especially when the view is obstructed by a wall.
Length and Difficulty
I finished the game in 3.1h. During that time, I got all but one grindy achievement, which I obtained after 0.1h of grinding. The game's difficulty is at the right difficulty for me. You don't need to think too hard to solve most of them, especially since they are quite easy to figure out.
Conclusion
The Portal influence feels strong in ChromaGun. However, it still tries to separate itself from Portal while still trying to give the same feeling. The puzzles are not hard, but there are plenty of them to keep your mind occupied. However, since the game is very short, I'd rather recommend buying it on sale.

I'm mixed, but erring on positive. I paid just over £2 for this because of a sale, and it was worth it, but it's not a perfect game. Set aside 4 hours and you can 100% it which I think is probably the best way to play it.

The colour mechanics are clever, and intuitive, and they make good use of them. There's a bit too much repetition in the very early levels but after that the puzzles were generally unique enough to be interesting, despite there being very few different pieces for them to work with.

The mechanics unfortunately mean that it's very possible (even easy sometimes) to softlock yourself and have to restart the level. Levels are short, so I didn't find it as bad as some other reviewers, but it is there, and it can be a bit frustrating. What I had more trouble with is how often you need to fire accurately, in the right colour, while under pressure. I did ragequit a few times because of that, but came back a few minutes later.

Another issue is I completed a couple of levels the wrong way by accident, basically skipping the puzzle. Those could have done with a bit more playtesting and tweaking I think.

It looks nice enough, and it works well with a 2560x1080 resolution, which isn't always a given. The voice acting is pretty good. I don't think I ever laughed, but it helps.

Overall it's a decent puzzle game. It's not one of my favourites - there's workshop support with user-made levels, but I'm not interested in playing more. But it's worth a try if you like this sort of thing and want a game you can complete in a short time. (And you'll enjoy it more if you're not so clumsy and panicky as me!) There's a sequel announced which looks a lot more elaborate so I hope they manage to make that a success.

Awesome!
I especially loved the little Portal references! A great puzzle game with very different difficulty levels in each section. I got it bundled with part 2 and I'm going to play that one right away! :D
PS: Forgot that the studio behind that game is german... I could have played it in german the whole time?! D: But the english narrator is aslo very good! ^^

i did really like the puzzles, but I thought the story was a bit boring. the antagonist goes for long periods without even showing up, and when he is there, he tends to say something sarcastic and then disappear again. i really only played this game to prepare for the sequel. it isn't disappointing, per se, but don't get your expectations too high. if you like puzzles, i would give this game a try.

This game caught my interest back then when I came across a content creator showcasing a puzzle game that had a color mechanic but had the option of using colorblind accessible labels (despite me not having any sort of colorblindness, I just considered this very cool from the devs). At the time, I had no interest in buying the game, since I still hadn't played Portal or similar games at the time. Some time passed, I had beaten Portal 1, 2 and plenty of Portal mods, and I coincidentally acquired this game through a key bundle. All of this to say, when I first played this game, I had no expectations in terms of game quality but already knew what kind of challenge I would face.
Puzzle-wise, it’s a solid game, it explores considerably well the color mechanics and, while later puzzles ramp up the difficulty curve way steeper than expected, you can still intuitively solve them if you’ve at least gotten though both Portal 1 and 2 once. The only gripes I have with the puzzles are the ones that rely on timing, be it with the eraser walls or with freezing non-hostile droids in place by painting over the attracting color, since the engine this game uses isn’t the best in terms of precision shooting and response times, requiring more attempts from you; and the puzzles using the paint reflector, a mechanic that is underutilized and underexplained through the game. This last one makes me feel the game either was too long and had to get some final stages cut for the sake of not overstaying its welcome, or the last stages felt too “samey” and that mechanic was a later-on-development thought that was added to keep the game difficulty/novelty progression somewhat consistent.
Regarding my complaint about the engine, I need to say my 100% playthrough was actually my second time playing this game, since the first one was on my older rig (a 2020 Acer Aspire 5), and that one had a difficult time running the game at a pleasant FPS, despite it not having issues with other games like Skyrim, CS:GO and Tabletop Simulator. Now, with my new rig (which is a bit overkill, might I add), the game had no issues with slowdowns, but it did had a strange bug in which sometimes all droids would approach the painted walls at a sluggish pace, bug that usually fixed itself after a level restart or character death. I guess it could be a refresh rate issue, since my monitor runs at 240Hz (haven’t tried capping the game at 60Hz, but my older rig never had that issue, so I’ll go with that as most probable cause).
Visually, it’s a good game, it clearly appeals to the aesthetic of Portal 1 with the sterile white walls being the perfect canvas (pun entirely intended) for the color mechanic, without adding unnecessary flair or realism.
Narratively, it was generic. I don’t say it heavily because, as I stated before, I had no expectations. Analyzing it coldly, the story clearly tries to blend the comedic tone of Portal 2’s Cave Johnson’s commentary, while maintaining the lore vagueness of Portal 1, but the execution of said combination felt inadequate, lacking impact, and the ending is just as generic as the rest of the game’s background story. I use the word background because, on my playthrough, I felt exactly like that: the story was a mere background, something to fill unused white space. Of course, I don’t blame it on the voice acting, since that was decent for an indie game. In the end, I’d say it’s something that could’ve made the game more attractive to a broader audience, but how it ended up, it didn’t personally harm the experience or make it less pleasant.
Overall, this is a good puzzle game that I’d definitely recommend if you can buy it on a sale, but it might not be worth the full price (at least in comparison to the game’s sequel, which looks way more polished, judging from the trailer and the playtest I participated).

Originally gave this a thumbs down but I came back and persevered. Quite a fun game but also very frustrating, because unlike other puzzle games it doesn't teach you a mechanic. It just throws it at you and hopes you're not thick as ♥♥♥♥ as I am

Completed, it was okay, not great but not bad. Would have liked more mechanics towards the end and maybe slightly more of Richard/Narrator, especially sometimes new mechanics could have had him to hint towards those.