Voxelgram
Voxelgram is a three dimensional Picross/nonogram puzzle game, where solving puzzles in 3D adds a layer of complexity and difficulty, but also a sense of satisfaction.
Unfortunately, there’s a steep learning curve to figuring out puzzles in 3D, especially if you’re accustomed to solving puzzles in 2D, and the tutorial puzzles do a very poor job of teaching the player. Once you get over that hump, however, the game quickly becomes engrossing and addictive.
PROS:
- Colorful and varied puzzles.
– Real player with 746.0 hrs in game
Read More: Best Puzzle Relaxing Games.
Achievements: Pretty straightforward and easy. There’s no time limits or penalties for mistakes, you just need to complete puzzles.
Voxelgram is incredibly reminiscent of a game back on the Nintendo DS called “Picross 3D”. I enjoyed that game immensely and I was really excited to see a similar game crop up on Steam. It’s a fun take on the usual picross format wherein the player essentially sculpts objects by removing pieces based on the hints marked on the sides. That is to say, where a normal picross game would have the player reveal 2D images, Voxelgram has the player reveal 3D objects. This makes it even more fun to see the puzzle come together.
– Real player with 237.9 hrs in game
LYNE
~ DIFFICULTY ~
🔲 My grandma could play it
🔲 Easy
🔲 Normal
✅ Hard
🔲 A challenge to be reckoned
🔲 In the heat of confrontation, treat your opponent with respect
~ GRAPHICS ~
🔲 MS Paint
🔲 Bad
🔲 Meh
✅ Graphics don’t matter for this game
🔲 Good (nothing special)
🔲 An original artistic direction
🔲 Beautiful
🔲 Masterpiece
~ STORY ~
✅ This game has no story
🔲 Basic element of the contractual requirements
🔲 It’s there for people who want it
🔲 Well written
🔲 Leading to more in-depth researches/thoughts
– Real player with 36.3 hrs in game
Read More: Best Puzzle Relaxing Games.
LYNE can best be described as a minimalist puzzle game.
Essentially it is a series of logic puzzles generated on a grid, consisting of coloured nodes and permeable gears. Each puzzle must be solved on the fly by connecting paths from one primary node to another through the same coloured nodes and transitional gears. The goal is to ensure that all nodes and all the slots on each gear are used in the eventual solution.
There are twenty-five individual puzzles grouped into twenty-six sets, which grow in depth and complexity the greater the progress made. As you can imagine the puzzles start off deliberately simple allowing players to grasp the basic elements of gameplay. Later puzzles require an ever increasing amount of convoluted paths to be drawn in order to use all the available nodes and gear slots. In addition the game also generates a set of daily time-limited puzzles which vary in complexity and must be finished each day or they disappear until they are generated sometime in the future.
– Real player with 22.5 hrs in game
Hexologic
This is a really pleasant puzzle game!
This is one of those games where you start it up, and you’re immediately dropped into a set of puzzles with no explanation as to how to proceed. Thankfully, the mechanics are easy to pick up, and new concepts are gradually introduced in intuitive ways. All throughout, the puzzles are very well-designed, and the difficulty curve is smooth.
Though there are only 90 “basic” and 21 “hard” puzzles in the game, and it may feel like a majority of the puzzles are themselves easy and short, I would say the game makes up for it by increasing in difficulty and throwing in a few tough puzzles in between the easy introductions of new concepts (which themselves are designed so as to not overwhelm you as you get used to them). The game also has two difficulties, an easy mode and a hard mode; these give you different achievements and have different puzzles in each, so this adds to both the replay value and challenge of the game.
– Real player with 8.7 hrs in game
Read More: Best Puzzle Sokoban Games.
AT A GLANCE:
3/5 Stars - This is a pretty decent logic based game. If you like messing around with numbers then check this game out. I would describe it as a logic meets sudoku puzzle. Definitely something different.
GAME GENRE:
Casual, Puzzle, Single Player, Indie, Logic
GAME DESCRIPTION:
Release Date: May 2018 - Click on the hexo’s to add or remove number dots. Equal the amount needed at the end of the hexo to finish. Puzzles get more challenging the farther along you go.
KID FRIENDLY:
– Real player with 8.3 hrs in game
The Signal State
Great little Zach-like. If you like this genre of fiddly little programming games, you’ll like this. If you’re not interested in the genre, you won’t.
Pros of this particular game:
+Charming analog aesthetics. The game’s UI feels very “physical” and low-tech in a neat way.
+Minimalist but reasonably interesting story. I’m all about workers seizing the means of production.
+Good soundtrack. Really helps you get into that zen programming mode.
+More accessible than most games in this genre, as difficulty curve is lower. This might be a con for you, if you’re super good at this genre and really want a challenge, but I think difficulty curve is in that sweet spot challenging without feeling like you now have a second job learning an imaginary programming language.
– Real player with 36.4 hrs in game
This game falls short on so many aspects and makes so many dubious design decisions that makes me wonder whether the devs actually know what they’re doing:
- UI/UX:
The main UI, a physical rack representing modules, is just bad, period. Now before you yell blindly, “but node-based programming is the future!”, please note that the game does not feature node-based programming: actual node-based programming would be like Scratch, LabVIEW or Blender nodes. This game’s UI represents specifically DAW skeuomorphism, notably Propellerhead’s Reason. It is also a design decision from the last century, done by nobody else, and being commonly criticized around all the time. Also, DAWs don’t have a million tiny modules like this game.
– Real player with 20.7 hrs in game
Wordle
- THERE IS A MAJOR CAVEAT TO THIS REVIEW THAT YOU WILL FIND BELOW*
(Version française en-dessous: N’ACHETEZ AUCUNE DLC, TRÈS MAUVAIS!!!)
ENGLISH VERSION ONLY: Wordle is a nice little word game that I found quite relaxing. It is actually a word search game. You are presented with a word grid that will increase in size as you progress from level to level. The objective is to clear each grid using all the letters shown in it. Each level correspond to a theme, and I believe that in all the game the same word never comes back once it has appeared in a grid. There is no time pressure, and you will find at the bottom empty spaces with the exact number of letters for each word you should find. The game will save your progress, so every time you go back to it, you will pick up from where you left it. It is not too difficult, I could finish the game in under 5 hours of play, more or less. If you want to replay it, you can reset the game and all your progress will be wiped out and you will be able to start with a clean slate.
– Real player with 13.1 hrs in game
‘Worldle’ is a nice and simple game. Like many others in this genre the game is tile based and you need to link letters into words, basically do that thing that D. Trump struggles with.
The game has different difficulty levels (3x3 to 5x5 tiles) and the challenges are thematic e.g. science, camping, arts. They are currently limited to 10 levels each, which is still more than Covid restriction levels.
In overall the game is good if you are learning English, want to expand your vocabulary or just train your attention and simple problem-solving skills, it is also good for relaxed concentration.
– Real player with 7.4 hrs in game
Block Motion
if you like infinifactory, then just buy this beautiful game.
– Real player with 63.1 hrs in game
Good for scratching that Infinifactory itch. Not quite as polished, but brings some new ideas to the table.
– Real player with 47.9 hrs in game
Cat Fu Mi
a simple but fun little game for casual time
– Real player with 6.5 hrs in game
What to say about Cat Fu Mi? Well, graphics are decent (bonus for cats!), the concept is rather universal and include some national variants. The dev even added a shop to customise your cat!
So why a negative review from me? A simple reason. Cat Fu Mi belongs to this category of AAAAARGH games which makes you feel frustrated like hell. Why is that so? Because this is a game that requires patience from you… A virtue I am entirely deprived of! I fail to see through the patterns of each cat and keep losing past the 6 first levels because I cannot bother to force myself to think about them.
– Real player with 1.1 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:
-
Easy to learn, hard to Master: Order of events and number comparisons determine the outcome
-
Hundreds of Levels
-
Multiple solutions to problems
-
Relaxing and soothing experience
Dark Crypt
Dark Crypt is a wonderfully spooky puzzle game which not only is it a great addition for your collection, but also great to chill and play around Halloween. Enjoy a turn based adventure through a crypt full of the undead to stop a slumbering evil from rising to power.
Every few levels or so introduces a new mechanic which so far as I’ve played, adds to the fun. The turn based movement and undo system means you can take all the chances and time you need to get through a level, but you can also skip levels if needed. The puzzles can be challenging but it feels good figuring out how to proceed and reaching that next level. To top it all off, the game has great atmospheric audio and music which blends well and compliments the visual tone of the game. If you’re looking for a cheap and interesting puzzle game to play, then give Dark Crypt a go.
– Real player with 9.8 hrs in game
Damn, this is a smart game!
Reminds me somewhat of the Lara Croft GO-Game, and also Hitman GO (whereas the latter was more Quantity than Quality) … DARK CRYPT brings a Roguelike-Aesthetic to the table, but at it’s heart it’s still a Puzzler: it eases you into it’s mechanics, every new obstacle has an introductory level, and then it combines them all together into a mindbending turn-based Stealth-Conundrum, where you have to navigate a spooky Dungeon and time your steps with the patterns of various Traps and Fiends, always having to think one step ahead.
– Real player with 7.1 hrs in game
Dinoku
⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐
– Real player with 3.4 hrs in game
I love the game, you need to be focused to solve the problems. Having said that, I’m stuck at level 67 T_T… Heeelp!
– Real player with 2.5 hrs in game