YMMV / Antichamber

• Alternative Character Interpretation: The black block (the only thing in the game that you could tentatively call a character) is pretty creepy, so it's easy to think of it as an antagonist, a tease, an Eldritch Abomination, etc. But you could also interpret it as just...lost. It seems to be trying to find its way home. This also gives us an alternate interpretation of the player's role — instead of just being "the player", you're a hero of sorts. This poor black block can't find its way home, and you swoop in to save the day and personally escort it back to its proper place. With this in mind, the Gainax Ending can feel like a Heartwarming Moment.
• Award Snub: Despite all the press and praise early in 2013, by the time the end of the year rolled around this game had been largely forgotten by critics on "Best Games of the Year" lists.
• Captain Obvious Aesop: The quotes you find scattered throughout are intended to be both clues and musings on the nature of life (see the game's original title). Many find them more useful as the former than the latter.
• Disappointing Last Level: While the game was very well received overall, some critics noticed that the game started to tone down the Mind Screw it did so well in favor of more standard Block Puzzle mechanics as you upgraded the block gun.
• Fan Nickname: The yellow gun is called "The Butter Gun" by some as dragged lines of yellow blocks look like sticks of butter.
• Fridge Brilliance: "Failing Forward" starts with one of the most Guide Dang It! puzzles in the whole game. There's a pit with a small bridge over it that's too short to help you cross it. If you jump, you'll just fall to the bottom. Players will just pick some blocks down there and use them as an elevator to reach to the other side. However, if you don't and instead press the Escape button and come back to the same room, you'll see the bridge is now a little longer. Repeat this, and eventually the bridge will be long enough to cross the pit. You'll now be wondering "How on hell did the creator expect me to figure that? And then you'll see the sign at the other side: "You can't do everything yourself". He didn't. The creator apparently assumes most players won't learn of the bridge solution unless they heard of it somewhere on the web, and is basically saying "OK, there's nothing wrong with looking for help if you really need it, there are things we just won't be able to do by ourselves" (mind you, there's still the block elevator solution, so you can still complete the puzzle on your own, you just won't learn of the other way).
• Game-Breaker: The Red Gun's ability to turn as little as two cubes into a theoretically infinite number of cubes trivializes all of the puzzles that weren't specifically made with it in mind. Depending on how well you know the layout, this can be a lot of puzzles.
• Genius Bonus: One of the items on the moral wall is the phrase "Some things don't have a deeper meaning," the image this is paired with being a pig in rollerskates, goggles, and with the number 18 drawn on it's side. At first one might think this to be an invoked Big-Lipped Alligator Moment, but it might actually be a reference to a particular joke: "Step 1: grease four pigs. Step 2: write the numbers 1, 2, 3, and 5 on their sides with a marker. Step 3: discreetly release them in a large public building at different locations. Step 5: Watch as they search for #4."
• Nightmare Fuel:
  • The ending may qualify. As soon as you capture the black block, the game loses all color and the ambient soundtrack becomes dark and ominous, with the constant rumble of thunder being heard in the background. And if that wasn't enough, once you shoot the black block into a wreckage inside a dome, it rises up and forms the Antichamber logo, which starts sucking everything in like a black hole, including itself. After that, the credits roll... and then the game closes itself.
  • The DON'T LOOK DOWN room. Take the Schmuck Bait, and you see a giant eye appears on the floor. It blinks, the floor disappears, and the player is forced to plummet down a lengthy shaft while the usual ambient sound changes to a thunderstorm.
  • The ambient sounds in the dark areas.
    • Hell, the ambient sounds in general. Most of the time the only ambient noises are soft, distant tones similar to xylophones or bells. but as you continue exploring you'll sometimes hear footsteps, whispering voices too quiet to make out, rustling leaves, chirping birds, or just a low hum. Or nothing at all. You can't help but feel both totally alone and yet watched at all times.
  • In the room "Three Paths in Sight", you'll find what looks like a gallery full of bizarre stuff. If we ignore the ominous pendulum spelling "LIFE" constantly ticking loudly, wandering around the room you'll find these three... things. What they are is unknown and their presence, despite they don't move, can be very unnerving, especially if you are a newcomer. You'll wonder if they'll stay at their place or eventually they'll come to life and get out of their "cages" to hunt you down.
• Scrappy Mechanic: Some of the most difficult, hair-pulling puzzles in the game in the end don't advance you towards the exit, but reward you with an Easter Egg room or plop you somewhere you've been before. This is fine when you've already beaten the game, but annoying when you're still trying to figure out where to concentrate your work to finish the game for the first time (especially when you still think there's a time limit, and therefore every second is gold: this poor guy found one of those rooms with only 8 minutes left on the timer).
• That One Level: Stairway to Heaven, ironically, is one of the rooms you'll end up hating the most; not because of its difficulty, but because many different puzzles around the game lead to it (it's quite the inverse of a Hub Level: it has a lot of different entries, but not many exits). It can be very frustrating to solve a puzzle believing you're going to unlock a new zone, only to discover you're again in the same room where you've already been lots of times. Worse yet, once you've seen the room's glowing spheres, and therefore realised where you're now, it's too late to go back: the passage you came from has already disappeared, meaning you have to use the Escape button to come back there.
• That One Puzzle: Link in a Chain Reaction. The only puzzle in the game to require decent spatial awareness, and utilizing the game's less than stellar three dimensional block construction.

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