One of my favorite parts of last week’s PAX was the “PAX 10,” a selection of indie games. People were voting for a winner.

The game I voted for was “Polarity.”

“Polarity” is a gravity-defying platformer that allows the player to tap the X button (they were letting people play with an Xbox 360 controller) to alter their polarity between red and blue. You must manipulate your personal polarity to navigate through environment.

I’ve never played anything quite like it. I’ll try to explain it:

There were five stages available for the PAX demo. As the stages became increasingly more complicated, it was taking longer and longer for me to complete them. Because I didn’t want to hold up the line, I limited myself to the first four stages, but it gave me the grand tour of what the unnamed team behind “Polarity” is trying to accomplish.

“Polarity” starts out simply enough. If your polarity is set to red and you pass by a blue block, you’ll stick to it. This allows you to climb up walls. Because you can quickly switch between polarities, the effects vary. It creates the opposite effect with the blue blocks. Instead of being sucked towards them, they push you away. This comes in handy when faced with a deadly pit full of blue; change to red and you hover over.

It’s when the game stops teaching you its mechanics and begins turning its conventions on its head that “Polarity” becomes really interesting.

You’re taught to use your powers to drag colored balls through the environment, but one puzzle has you shifting the polarity around to push the balls in the opposite direction. You don’t want them to come with you; you want them as far away as possible. It’s these kinds of brain teasers that had me setting down the controller and looking at the screen during PAX.

Right now, “Polarity” is just a demo. There aren’t any plans for a release on Xbox Live Arcade, PlayStation Network, WiiWare or anywhere else. But you can download the demo for free from the official “Polarity” website.

I highly recommend you do.

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