The Catacombs of Solaris for Windows

Make art on the walls

The Catacombs of Solaris is a free first-person simulation video game wherein you can create cool abstract art by simply moving. Developed by Ian MacLarty, this art indie game plays out like a surreal museum visit. You have to navigate the confusing rainbow pixel-plastered hallways in order to find the art you like. Take note, however, that this game can easily give headaches to anyone sensitive to bright colors and mind-bending visuals.

Control your perspective

The Catacombs of Solaris doesn’t actually have paintings around like in Afternoon Spaghetti, another art indie game. Here, you have to make them yourself. You do this by moving around, picking a wall, and panning your camera view a bit to skew the pixels around. This paints over your view of the hallways, making the pixels bigger and the colors more defined. Be careful, however, as this can easily hide the walls.

You start off in a hallway with rainbow pixel wallpaper—the kind that shows up on static TV screens. Sometimes, the pixel sizes vary so this helps in distinguishing where the walls start and end. As long as you keep moving, they won’t distort and make you lost. However, distorting them is the key to making art. The only real downside to this is that it can be nauseous to do. The lack of audio doesn’t help.

The controls are easy despite the lack of tutorials—although it would still help as there are actually three sets depending on your preference. You can either use the arrow keys or the WASD keys and your mouse for keyboard use. Meanwhile, if you’re using controllers, the right joystick is for the camera while the left one is for moving around. If you ever get too lost, just press R on the keyboard or B on your gamepad.

Far too quiet

The Catacombs of Solaris is a pretty interesting concept. It feels unpolished, however, with the lack of actual graphical settings, audio, and tutorials. You can easily get lost—and the game description is quite vague. There’s no actual end-goal, as you just play around and exit the game once you’re either done enjoying the mind-bending mechanics or getting dizzy. If you like these types of games with puzzles and a story, though, then a highly-recommended one is Superliminal.