Understand
Understand feels like dealing with real problems in science: develop a hypothesis, test the hypothesis, see that it works in several instances, and then you find your hypothesis is invalidated in a new situation.
Your hypothesis may have been only half true and requires an additional condition, or it’s completely false and just happened to work due to the small possibility space of the earliest puzzles. As you move from puzzle group to puzzle group, you have to do the same thing - unlearn some things but keep some of your past experience. The game feels fresh and exciting because each of the hundreds of sets of puzzles are genuinely different.
– Real player with 87.9 hrs in game
Read More: Best Mouse only Logic Games.
Understand is one of three games to take the core concept of The Witness and push it in the same directions. And no I don’t mean drawing lines. Rather I mean discovering a series of rules from sequences of puzzles. (The other two are Jack Lance’s From Muddle to Clean and TheGreatEscaper’s Witless.) And it is pretty much on that merit alone that I would recommend it because, in all honesty, the execution is lacking.
Understand is undercooked. The puzzle design is mediocre, many rule ideas are similar, some levels become procedurally difficult seemingly at random, there’s tons of padding due to arbitrary world size constraints, etc. Overall, I tend to dislike puzzle games that are mere route the entire way through. You just go to puzzle to puzzle learning and gaining nothing. Understand is not that. It is inventive on the micro level (puzzle-to-puzzle) which is something.
– Real player with 37.4 hrs in game
CIPHERCELL
CIPHERCELL is a minimalist logic puzzle game where you slide cells together to perform arithmetic. The objective is to get the last cell to zero.
Smaller numbers get added to larger numbers when slid in that order. Conversely, larger numbers subtract smaller numbers, and equal numbers cancel each other out.
Features:
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Easy to learn, hard to Master: Order of events and number comparisons determine the outcome
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Hundreds of Levels
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Multiple solutions to problems
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Relaxing and soothing experience
Read More: Best Mouse only Logic Games.
Long Tail
edit: full screen mode and reduced screen shake.
long tail is a minimalist draw a single line puzzler with a twist. normally these take place on a grid, gotta find a way to cover all the tiles, maybe even connect dots of different colors, etc. in this case though, you’re collecting coins scattered around all sorts of layouts by dashing around, no grid to stick to. sounds like a cakewalk, you say? well…
– Real player with 6.2 hrs in game
Read More: Best Mouse only Logic Games.
I like it, it feels like the real challenge is to get a “coin” (didn’t know coins could be square) on every line but the game doesn’t force you to complete it like that, which is good because getting a coin on each line can be insanely hard even at the early levels. Good visuals for a small little game like this, really like that you emit light which shows you where you can shoot.
– Real player with 1.3 hrs in game
🔴 Circles
Circles has an interesting concept with a minimalistic lookout.
The player controls a small circle that has to meet another, a bit bigger circle, of the same color. On the promotional video it looks a bit messy what is going on the screen, but it is easy to figure it out while playing.
Every level has a slightly different mechanics - some are very easy while some require patience or precision. There are 4 extra modes to unlock - they add extra mechanics to the regular levels.
There is no counter or failures nor “no death” achievements. The player can fail as many times as needed and is not being punished in any way, which is great.
– Real player with 5.8 hrs in game
You are a circle and need to go from circle A to circle B by moving your mouse.
That’s the only input you need.
There are circular obstacles in your way which you mustn’t touch.
Their diameter increases or decreases depending on your movement or they move depending on your movement.
There are different types of circle obstacles:
Popper: linear to your moved mouse way increasing diameter to a specific value and then decreasing it to zero and then endlessly repeating the loop
Mover: this circle moves along a circle way when you move.
– Real player with 3.9 hrs in game
Cardinal Chains
This is a fantastic little puzzle game that offers a simple premise but a lot of depth. Your goal is simple, make chains of integers that only ascend. While this is simple at first, the more complex the board and the more starting points you get make for an increasingly difficult challenge, and with over 500 puzzles you will be at this game for a while. It’s the sort of game you get suck on for hours and then come back to a few days later and solve in a few minutes, and then get stuck all over again.
– Real player with 25.1 hrs in game
Suitable challenging puzzles, super fluid UI.
– Real player with 18.4 hrs in game
Re-Nullum
7.5 hours later, first play and had a great time completing the puzzles. Frustrating here and there where i didn’t bother to think on the puzzles (instead did the old trial and error until I was like, ‘this is bonkers, let’s break this down, add it up and divide’). That said in this game a little effort goes a long way. It was enjoyed. We rate it 4 and a half royal-desserts (equal to 4.5 of those common stars).
– Real player with 7.5 hrs in game
It’s just like Nullum except that regions physically expand after you combine them (if their associated numbers don’t cancel out). The expansion causes the new region to physically touch other regions it wouldn’t have touched otherwise, so there are more options for combining. This made some of the levels harder than Nullum and some easier. Like Nullum, this is a clean, simple, minimalistic game that requires a lot of basic addition and either planning or trial-and-error. Levels can be restarted at any point, infinitely many times with no penalty.
– Real player with 5.1 hrs in game
Adjacency
Average puzzle game with nothing new to offer.
The achievments dont work so cant recommend this one.
– Real player with 10.3 hrs in game
I have to say that I’ve mostly enjoyed Adjacency. For $2 there’s around 4 hours of content and most of the puzzles are fun. Biggest problem with the game is that one of the special tile types is really counter-intuitive and just a chore to deal with. Thankfully can just skip the frustrating levels.
Full game review: https://youtu.be/uwS3pE6JbDg
– Real player with 7.1 hrs in game
Sliko
[EN/US]
Sliko is a type of Sokoban game where you have to put some colored blocks in the right spots by sliding them through the levels and despite it’s simple gameplay the levels can be somewhat difficult. The difficult increases little by little, level by level, but there as some early levels that are way harder than some late ones. All in all, Sliko is a great game and it’s worthy its cost.
[PT/BR]
Sliko é um tipo de jogo Sokoban onde você tem que colocar blocos coloridos nos lugares certos e isso é feito deslizando-os pelo nível e apesar da jogabilidade bem simples o jogo é um pouco difícil. A dificuldade em si vai aumentando de pouco em pouco, nível a nível, mas tem alguns níveis iniciais que são mais difíceis do que níveis posteriores. Tendo tudo isso em mente, Sliko é um ótimo jogo e vale a pena o preço.
– Real player with 6.4 hrs in game
Nice game! The game is simple, objective, with good graphics and challenging. Another highlight is the relaxing soundtrack, looking forward to the continuation and dlc’s.
– Real player with 4.0 hrs in game
Higgs Boson: Minimal Puzzle
In this game there is something very profound, which is the effort to close a cycle and create a meeting!
A short game with intriguing mechanics I had a good experience that was worth it
– Real player with 1.1 hrs in game
Short, minimalistic and relaxing game. From level 28 onwards, the game got really interesting and challenging. Too bad, that there are only 30 levels. Would have been nice if there were more levels with increasing difficulty. A challenge mode with a limited amount of turns would be nice as well.
– Real player with 0.7 hrs in game
Whispers of Ancient Stone
This short puzzle game gradually reveals the story of a crumbling ruin through block placement and letter substitution stages. Rebuild the structure to decipher the whispers of ancient stone!