Contrast
Worth it · Narrative · 2013
Steam Deck VerifiedThe verdict
BUY IT.
Worth it at $2.49.
- Reviews
- 91% positive
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Minimum on the Steam store: 2 GB of memory, 4 GB of storage. Windows only.
CONTRAST is a puzzle/platform game where you can move between a fantastic 3D world and a mysterious shadowy universe in 2D in the blink of an eye. Delve into a dreamlike and surreal 1920s world, inspired by the performance art world of vaudeville and film noir, and cradled by a smooth and sultry jazz ambiance.
What drives the score
How to read this
Every input gets a grade, S to D, read from the buyer's side. The score is multiplicative, so an input only counts as raising when it sits near the top of its own scale. Anything with real room left is holding the score back, because that room is the gap to 100. ▲ marks a lift, ▼ a drag or a dock, ? an input we do not have, • a fact this genre's score does not use. The exact weights stay secret.
- How long it takes to beat isn't in our data. We scored it as a typical Narrative game (about 5 hours) and docked the score for the missing length.
The value story
The lowest price on record is $2.49, set in June 2024. It has been discounted 61 times in the 13 years tracked here, typically at 70 percent off, with about 7 weeks between sales. Today's $2.49 at 75 percent off matches the lowest price in the record.
Against its own genre it lands in the top 3 percent on value. It is pricier than 69 percent of its genre, and better reviewed than 92 percent. Among the games that feel like it, Little Nightmares ($4.99, scores 88) beats it on value, while it beats Never Alone (Kisima Ingitchuna) ($14.99, scores 46).
The press gave it 62; the people who bought it give it 91 percent. A 29-point gap in the buyer's favour.
Of the 388 Steam-purchase reviews this site sampled, 2 come from buyers who refunded the game, sampled from reviews written April 2020 to September 2026. Inside the two-hour refund window, 72 percent of the 475 reviews written there were positive, against 91 percent overall, and those are 10 percent of everything written about it.
Deck Verified, so no launch options and no controller remapping before it runs.
The drop-off
88% start to 15% rarestNo achievement in this game marks the ending, so there is no finish rate. The curve runs from the most-unlocked achievement to the rarest, and its shape is where players stop. Steam global achievements
Players
1 players at peak in the last day.
The chart appears once this game has been counted more than once.Player counts via SteamSpy.
Cite this score
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Contrast scores 70/100 on the BANG Score (worth it). Length is estimated at 5 hours, not measured, so the score is docked. The BANG Score rates what a game is worth for the money. Via Steam BANGERS. https://steambangers.com/game/224460/contrastThe BANG Score is one number for value, 0 to 100: price against how it reviews and how long it was built to be. It answers the money question and stops there; whether the game is for you is still your call.
Reviews set the ceiling and price moves you inside it, so a cheap game that reviews badly cannot climb. Ratings from few reviewers are shrunk toward the middle, so 100 percent from nine people does not outrank 96 percent from ninety thousand. Length comes from HowLongToBeat where it can be matched, measured against a per-genre floor so a five-hour narrative game is judged against other narrative games rather than against a sixty-hour RPG. Where no verified length exists the score says so and carries a dock, because the biggest input is then a guess. The full method, including where it is weak → Steam reviews as of Sep 6, price as of Sep 24.
A number here look wrong? Tell me what it got wrong and I will look at the inputs behind it.