izigame.me

8/10
Excellent puzzler that’s a lot more than just pushing blocks.
What is it: An open world block pushing adventure puzzler with more than a tinge of metroidvania. You explore an archipelago, with several big and small islands split into different rooms. You push different kinds of blocks on different types of surfaces, collect various gems, keys and stars, unlock new powers and elementals, until you reach the summit. It’s a great game, let's dissect it.
First, the puzzles. “Block pushing” may sound boring, but this isn’t your run-of-the-mill Sokoban clone. All the puzzles are immersive. There are six different biomes, each with its own particular mechanics, sometimes combined for even harder puzzles. For example, on the volcano island you can push a metal crate on lava to make a platform, but a wooden box would burn, while on the water island you can push a wooden crate into water to make a platform, while a metal crate would sink. There’s a great variety of puzzles, from easy to very hard, and they rarely involve basic block pushing, but finding the right sequence or combination of puzzle elements. Use the snowball to make this patch of ice non slippery, so you can walk up to the water elemental and get it off the ice, then turn the water elemental into a fire elemental to shoot the other snowballs blocking the way.
Metroidvania. Each room can have several items to collect, and you don’t have to collect all of them at once; sometimes it’s not even possible to collect all of them at once, and there are barriers with “memory” that you have to destroy once, and then even after restarting the room they will be gone, allowing you to reuse the items you destroyed previously for a different purpose. Some hard rooms require that you play it multiple times, each run destroying a barrier that will let you get closer to the next one. And sometimes part of the room can be done with the abilities you have now, but part of it requires a new ability. Like in a metroidvania, you’ll have to keep exploring and coming back to previous rooms to check if new parts have become possible.
Adventure. The puzzles aren’t boringly listed in a grid with numbers, but embedded in the world, and quite a lot of “puzzles” aren't about pushing blocks, but exploring the world, finding secret walls or hidden items, or solving other kinds of puzzles. The frozen island is a maze itself. There's a story to discover, with multiple cutscenes shown as a reward as you make progress.
Presentation/implementation. Very well done. Pixel art, but gorgeous. Great music. Good controls and QoL. Although it was done by a very small team, it feels like a big budget, big studio product.
So overall it’s a well done game.
Yet, the game as it is right now has some serious issues. It was released much too soon. Parts of it are not yet done, there are rooms you can visit where there's nothing to do although you can see an almost puzzle. There are rooms you cannot enter even though you see them on the map. And there are whole islands you can glimpse under the clouds but can't reach yet. So plenty of planned but not implemented content. A lot of bugs are being reported, and fortunately the dev is quickly fixing them. And finishing the story is possible way too soon, when having collected just half of the collectibles, before gaining all the abilities, and an entire big island doesn't even need to be visited.
My main issue with the game is that the metroidvania aspect, while nice, is not very well done. While some sections are locked behind barriers you know you need a new ability to pass, quite often you have a puzzle you can interact with and have no idea if it can be solved with what you have or not. I spent a lot of time trying to solve impossible puzzles, or I ignored a puzzle that I could and needed to solve to unlock a missing ability. Many puzzles have multiple solutions, sometimes a hard one and one that is trivial once you come back with a new ability. The final four hard puzzles aren’t even the hardest in the game, and they can be solved ignoring half of the items in them.
But that’s not really bad, bugs will be fixed, new content will be added, better markers of what’s not yet possible will be added, and not having to do everything before the end is a great incentive for speedrunners to figure out the quickest path to the end. It’s good that there's an active community and a very responsive developer.
Overall I enjoyed this a lot, despite wasting a lot of time trying to figure out which puzzles are solvable and which aren't. It is a good game, and will soon be a great game.
How hard is it: Hard.
How long is it: more than 100 rooms, about 10-15 hours to finish the game, and about 20-30 to get everything.
Level design: Mostly great. Excellent puzzles, hard but approachable. What I don't like is that some puzzles have unintended solutions, and many puzzles are trivialized by the powers you are supposed to unlock much later.
Quality: Good and getting better. Good controls, undo, multiple save slots. Decent settings. Cloud saving, progress achievements. Mostly fast and responsive, with a few animations that take too long for my taste.
Worth the price: Yes.
Most positive aspect for me: Good hard puzzles.
Most negative aspect for me: Not clear enough what is yet impossible.
What would make it better: Clearer indication of what is not yet possible. More content, more bugs fixed. Tighter puzzles without unintended solutions. Better explanation for the sleeping rock puzzle.
Also consider:
Unforgettable Voyage, similar block pusher + adventure + metroidvania game, with 3 characters instead of one.
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