Tag Archives: puzzle game

Boxville: Demo Review 

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Boxville is a point-and-click puzzle game about sentient cans inhabiting a cardboard city.  No one speaks, but rather, communicates completely through drawings.  I’ve played plenty of games like this, whether it be When the Past Was Around or The Almost Gone, where you wander around, gather items to use in other locations, and solve puzzles.  And yet, for whatever reason, I really struggled with this demo.  Part of the issue arose from my confusion over where the inventory was (you need to hover over the top left corner of the screen), though I guess the game does show you this the first time you obtain an item.  I must have just missed it.

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Tetragon: Demo Review

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Tetragon is a 2D puzzle game that follows the story of a father looking for his missing son.  The demo covers a good handful of these puzzles, all of which take place within a square-shaped space.  While your character cannot jump, he can climb and utilize two tools for changing his environment.  First off, you can use these stones to rotate the whole puzzle left or right by 90 degrees.  And secondly, you also obtain this lantern, which allows you to manipulate the length of these pillars.  Your goal in each level is to reach the exit by changing your environment and finding a safe path to the end.

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Trine 4: The Nightmare Prince is a Beautiful Dream

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Trine 4: The Nightmare Prince follows three heroes, Amadeus the wizard, Pontius the knight, and Zoya the thief on their quest to find Prince Selius and figure out a solution to the young man’s rampant nightmare magic.  The game is a puzzle-platformer, and thanks to each character’s unique moveset, there are multiple ways to progress through, and solve puzzles in, each of the 17 levels spread across 5 acts.  Starting off, Amadeus can move objects and conjure up boxes, spheres, and planks for all your platforming needs.  Armed with his trusty sword, Pontius is more of a fighter, but he can also charge and use his shield to reflect light or redirect water.  And Zoya can use her ropes to swing from hooks, make bridges, or tie objects together, and she has three types of arrows at her disposal.

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Trine 4: The Nightmare Prince Playthrough on Virtual Bastion

Trine 4: The Nightmare Thief follows three characters with unique abilities, Amadeus the wizard, Pontius the knight, and Zoya the thief, who are tasked with searching for Prince Selius, who has the frightening ability to create physical manifestations of his nightmares!  I played the demo a while back, so now it’s time to continue from where we left off.  But in case you missed the demo, you can find it below:

Video from YouTube User: Virtual Bastion

Episode 2:

Video from YouTube User: Virtual Bastion

Fractured Minds: Short, but Deep

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Fractured Minds is a short (as in 20-30 minutes long) game exploring life with mental illness.  Impressively enough, the game was developed by one person, Emily Mitchell, who was just 17 at the time and was inspired by her own struggle with anxiety.  The game is divided into six chapters, each of which involve simple puzzles to solve, whether it’s searching for the right key or inputting the correct symbols to unlock your way forward.  Honestly, the game is pretty easy, and the puzzles won’t make you think too much.  It’s really the game’s theme that makes it stand out the most.

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Shutter Nyan: Demo Review

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Shutter Nyan is a puzzle-platformer about a cat with a camera who wants to cheer up its owner.  The game has a simple, mostly black and white artstyle with splashes of color, namely when it comes to the objects that you can photograph.  Certain objects can be photographed and then duplicated anywhere you want in order to make platforms, and your goal is to complete a picture of how our kitty protagonist met its owner.  The problem is, this picture is missing certain elements, like the girl’s rain boots and umbrella, so you must seek out these objects, take photos of them, and then place the photos in the picture to fill in the gaps.

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Pompom: The Great Space Rescue: Demo Review

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Pompom: The Great Space Rescue follows the story of a hamster named Pompom who must rescue his human friend Hoshi after he was kidnapped by pirate cats.  Based on the screenshots, I expected the game to be akin to Super Mario World if Mario was replaced by a hamster.  But when I started the demo, I quickly realized that my assumption was quite wrong.  You see, you don’t actually control Pompom at all.  In fact, our little hamster pal walks and jumps automatically.  So what’s the humble player’s role in all this, hmm?  Well, your job is to lay down platforms, springs, etc. in order to complete Pompom’s path and get him to the end of the level.

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Youropa: Demo Review

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Youropa is a rather bizarre puzzle game that opens with an upside down view of the Eiffel Tower floating into the sky, along with various chunks of Paris’ streets.  Your character is a faceless humanoid who appears to come to life once paint falls on it, after which you’ll begin your sky-high adventure by traversing the pieces of the city now inexplicably floating miles above the ground.  Although your character can’t jump (I hear that skill comes later), you do have the unique ability to walk anywhere your suction cup feet can take you, including sideways or even upside down.

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Timelie: Demo Review

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Timelie is a thought-provoking puzzle game where you have the ability to rewind and fast forward through time.  You play as two characters, a girl who can interact with switches on the walls and fix gaps in the floor and a cat who can fit through small spaces and meow to distract enemies.  Together, the two must time their movements carefully and figure out how to reach the exit while avoiding the robots patrolling the area.

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