Vessel is an interesting experiment in physics that is sure to excite and infuriate, as any good puzzle game should. You play as Arkwright, an adventurer with a shop-vac like backpack called the Fluro that can suck up and spit out various fluids around the world to solve puzzles.

The game plays pretty tightly. The graphical style is cartoony in an odd way that almost reminds me of the old game Clay Fighter. It has to do with the way the fluid looks and the three dimensional look the world has.

You traverse left and right and jump from area to area like a traditional platformer, but the catch is your ability to manipulate fluids. Played with an Xbox 360 controller, one of the bumpers was in charge of sucking and the other in charge of blowing. This way you could maneuver yourself over a fluid vent in the rock, or in the middle of a stream and fill up your gauges with a specific type of fluid. You can also switch containers to suck up another type of fluid, and switch between up to three kinds, depending on the puzzle you need to solve.

I played through one level in which you used a glow-in-the-dark fluid to light your way through the level. It was a simple platforming area, but you needed to fluid to see where you were going next. So you’d spray the liquid on the ceiling and floors to light your path, or even douse yourself in it to make yourself a mobile glowstick.

I spoke with the tech director of Strange Loop Games, Martin Farren, as I maneuvered through the levels. The game is actually in early development and they estimate it to last at least another year. They’re still brainstorming new fluids to manipulate and adding more content into the game.

My next challenge involved a level with cranks and piping. I needed to catch the white water falling from a waterfall, spout it into a second pipe which would then spout it into a third pipe that would water an apple orchard. But instead of apples, a red beast grew from the tree and hopped its way onto the ground. The next section involved catching the beast in bucket which liquified them, and then sucking up the liquid in order to fill up a trigger that would allow me to move on.

It was a trick to get the pipes lined up correctly. They could be rotated using knobs that required the player to spin their character around several times and land at a specific angle. It was a slow process to get it right, but the physics of spouting water was quite impressive. The manipulation of the different substances sound like it will get quite interesting as the game nears completion.

Overall, Vessel is going to be a fun experience. Having control over fluids is an interesting and realistic activity in the game. We’ll keep you posted as we hear more about it.