devonrv
  • Pocket Kingdom

    4 hours playtime

    9 of 16 achievements

This is a puzzle game. Each room loops horizontally and vertically, with the goal being to reach the next door or ladder, which takes you to the next room. Puzzles usually consist of lasers, boxes that can be pushed, crates that can be destroyed, and/or switches that push blue blocks in/out of walls, but there are also some adventure-game-style fetch quests or riddles. Personally, I would’ve preferred a linear game that didn’t have the adventure game elements, but I do think it handled being a nonlinear puzzle game better than Toki Tori 2 did.

Most of the puzzles for the first hour or so are pretty dull. The game does try to spice it up a bit by introducing some upgrades, like the “climb twice as high” boots (you can’t jump, at least not in the traditional sense), but this is well after establishing the original jump height and continuing to design later levels around said jump height, so part of me being stumped was simply forgetting I could do this. The game also introduces a grappling hook (bring blocks to yourself or yourself to a wall), and later on, a rocket launcher (pushes blocks and destroys crates), but you can’t hold onto both at once; you have to find another spawn point for them (and since one disappears when you touch the other, you can’t just swap between them at the same spot). This was an interesting dynamic and it resulted in the game’s better, trickier puzzles, but it did leave a bit of a sour taste in my mouth since the solution for some of the late-game puzzles involved using the “teleport to any room you visited” power to go back to where you can swap weapons, then teleporting back with the other one (instead of, you know, giving you the tools you need in that same room, like most of the other puzzles do).

There’s also some post-game content, but it relies too heavily on adventure-game-style riddles for my taste. I did try wandering around a bit to see if I could figure out what I missed, but gave up. You’d think that since bringing the red skull key to the red demon is what lets you progress the main story, then bringing the blue skull key to the blue demon is something you’d need to do for the post-game, but that didn’t trigger anything. Maybe I bought the wrong items from the shops? Maybe I’m supposed to decode Yumo’s language on my own at this point? Who knows…

Overall, the game’s okay. It has some dull puzzles, some good puzzles, and some adventure game obstacles that really have nothing to do with its core mechanics (but luckily, a lot of them are optional). I say wait for a sale.

Lex

It sounds like a really fun puzzle game! The art is unique and stylized too.

It’s been in 5 bundles so it should be easy enough to come by.