Évaluations récentes de 100% Hippo

Scalak is a colorful and clever puzzle game that tasks you with fitting various components together. I enjoyed the game, although not as much as the other terrific puzzle games by this dev. It does a good job presenting a very simple interface without missing any options you'd expect, and the ambient music sets a nice mood throughout. It introduces several clever mechanics and makes use of them in increasingly complex ways. None of the levels are super challenging, although a few had me temporarily stumped. There are 90 levels in total, which took me a little under 2 hours to complete.

However, there were a few minor things that detracted from my enjoyment of the game. The game can be a little hard on the eyes, particularly in a dark setting, as the background colors are bright and colorful, and the animation at the end of a level can be particularly bright. It looks good, but it did bother me a little. Many of the puzzles also involve rotating shapes to see all the sides, and the rotation could be a bit wonky with the larger and more elaborate shapes. These large shapes wouldn't always rotate in the way I intended, but it was usually an easy fix to get it where I wanted.

Overall the game is relaxing, with puzzles that are designed well and are satisfying to solve. It is certainly well worth the low price, and anyone who enjoys puzzles should have a fun time with it.

For more puzzle game and platformer recommendations, check out my Curator page

A short, relaxing game with a clean visual style and a calm piano soundtrack (and it's free). The puzzles aren't all that hard, but a few of the levels do require some thought. It introduces a new mechanic every level or two, and while it doesn't really develop any of them all that much (it is 10 minutes long after all), it allows the game to focus more on calmly figuring out the new mechanics rather than having difficult puzzles with them. I enjoyed playing through, and I only wish it was longer.

For more puzzle game and platformer recommendations, check out my Curator page

Portal 2 does everything right for a puzzle game. Great puzzles, terrific dialog, lengthy campaign, fun co-op, a level editor, mod support... what more could you ask for? The gameplay is very unique, the portals especially lead to satisfying levels and very interesting interactions with the other game mechanics. The 'test chamber' premise works extremely well to make self contained levels that make sense with the story, but at times you also get the feeling of blazing your own trial even within the contained environments. The characters and quips are hilarious and memorable, and even people who haven't played the game have probably heard retellings of some of the jokes. The co-op campaign makes sure to force you to work together at times while also providing ample opportunities to mess with your partner. Even once you've played through the campaign twice and beaten the co-op with everyone on your friends list, you can still go back and expierience it all again through community made levels and mods (Thinking with Time Machine and Aperature Tag are ones I've played and really enjoyed). If you haven't played it yet, do yourself a favor and pick it up (or wait for the periodic sales), it's well worth it.

For more puzzle game and platformer recommendations, check out my Curator page

With puzzles that all boil down to guessing and several missing features, I can't recommend this game, especially not anywhere near full price. The game works, but the very basic home screen simply has 4 buttons to generate a puzzle in the 4 sizes, no options, no exit button. I wasn't able to get the game to launch on my primary monitor, and given it launched in full screen and had no options, there wasn't much I could do to fix it. All of the puzzles are randomly generated, which is fine, but it means that there is no form of progression outside of the level sizes. All of the numbers on the boards seem to be 2, 3, or 4, which means it is impossible to solve puzzles logically, especially larger ones, and you must always resort to guessing. Even in the occasional case where you can determine a tile must be included (or discluded) from the row or column, there's no way to differentiate it from the tiles you've guessed about, as every tile is simply on or off. There's also hardly any confirmation when a level is completed, it just unlocks the respetive achievement (if that is your first puzzle of that size), and then returns you to the home screen after a short delay.

It was also alarming that my filewall notified me that it blocked certain features of the game. I didn't look into it at all, so I'll give the game the benefit of the doubt that it was a false positive, but I thought it was worth mentioning.

If this game looks interesting to you, I'd recommend looking at Squarecells instead. Similar enough concept, but with logic based levels and much better execution.

For more puzzle game and platformer recommendations, check out my Curator page

SiNKR revolves around navigating the square and circular pieces to the designated positions using hooks as well as other mechanics. The puzzles are good, and the game's only downside is that the menus are a little rough around the edges. The levels are well designed, first introducing the mechanics and then presenting them in interesting combinations. In addition to the hook which can catch pieces and pull them in there are arrows to redirect movement, rotating arrows, and teleporters (which can also be used to duplicate pieces). The range of mechanics makes each level feel different. While they could all be solved by trial and error, a bit of planning initially can help a ton. The game lacks the super polished feel of some minimalist games even though the options are intuitive and not missing anything. The buttons are a little visually unappealing, but they get the job done. With an hour and a half of good puzzles, this is certainly worth the price.

For more puzzle game and platformer recommendations, check out my Curator page

VOI is a short puzzle game with an interesting mechanic (reminds me of physical tangram puzzles but with XOR logic), but the implementation is a bit lacking. The puzzles are good, and several took me many attempts to figure out the right solution. With the play field dominating the left of the screen with the intended shape on the right it felt very similar to messing with similar physical puzzles, trying to create the correct shape. The XOR aspect of it (overlapping shapes negate each other) makes the puzzles interesting and unique. There are 66 levels, and it took me just over an hour to complete all of them.

However, as a game, it was missing several crucial features. There's no options other than to disable music or sound effects, and no exit button. Hitting escape enters windowed mode (from fullscreen), but you have to force quit the window either manually or with alt+f4. When you complete the last level there's no confirmation that you've solved the level other than the achievement unlock. Nothing here that stops me from recommending the game, but it does detract from the overall experience. For a dollar, I'd say it is worth it, but there's better alternatives such as Hook, klocki, or PUSH.

For more puzzle game and platformer recommendations, check out my Curator page

Puzzlement is a polished little puzzle game with an interesting base mechanic. The wrapping that the 3D shapes projected into 2D space created led to interesting ways to change which direction gravity affected the character. There's enough mechanics introduced to keep the levels interesting, and they are combined in interesting ways. The key bindings felt natural - as an example, it is possible in some levels to get to a point you can't progress from, and 'r' resets the level as you'd expect. The game is short - it took me under an hour to complete, but as a result none of the mechanics overstayed their welcome. Probably worth full price, and certainly worth it if you pick it up for 75% off as I did.

For more puzzle game and platformer recommendations, check out my Curator page

Hocus is an okay game in a mindless fashion, but suffers from being a blatant port from mobile with really poor PC controls. The actual puzzles are functional, but for many of them, especially the larger ones, I felt like it was more effective to just traverse at random than apply any kind of logic. This robs the levels from being satisfying to solve. Every time the cube moves a space it plays an almost metalic clinking that quickly gets annoying. The music is also uninteresting, and breifly becomes quieter each time you finish a level which is very noticable and feels discontinuous.

What really kept the game from being enjoyable were the multitude of lacking features that make it clear the game is designed for mobile and not PC. There's no options menu or exit button (you have to alt+f4). The keyboard is not used although you need it to force quit the application. The mouse dictates movement in a way that would work well for a touch screen but works poorly for a mouse. Only the direction of a click is used, the cube stops at every intersection regardless of how far you click which is perpetually aggrivating. The game recommends you play with a controller, but almost everything is reliant on solely the left thumbstick and the buttons are used poorly or not at all. While using a controller, it is also possible to enter menus that are impossible to leave (namely the level editor) and you also cannot ever exit the game. When scrolling in level selection, the screen moves in the opposite direction as to what is native for PC and the movement speed is very slow. To make all of this even worse, the game doesn't look like the screenshots in the store, rather it has a bordered region in the middle of the screen shaped like a phone screen where all of the actual gameplay takes place (pictured below).

https://gtm.steamproxy.vip/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=1362670427
The game has a level editor which seemed to work well enough, but I never felt compelled to look for community levels as I don't think any level made via the editor could bring anything new to the picture; all the provided levels rely on the same mechanic.

Steam games feeling like they're a port from mobile isn't always a fundamentally negative thing, but in this case it is. Having played many other terrific simple puzzle games like PUSH, Hook, and klocki this one was a letdown. If you're interested in this game, I would recommend instead looking at the game Disoriented, which has a nearly identical base mechanic but has a much smoother implementation that feels native to PC.

For more puzzle game and platformer recommendations, check out my Curator page

Metamorphic has a good base concept, but the game's execution and the few bugs I encountered kept it from being enjoyable. The setting, a visually simplified, plotless, Portal-esqe environment, isn't all that spectacular, especially with the issues I had that made water textureless and glitchy. The music is uninteresting and a bit hard to listen to after a while. With the later levels, I never felt like I solved them in the intended way. I would usually either solve an area in 2 or 3 placements, skipping large sections, or spend long periods of time fighting the game's physics to try and get pieces to behave correctly. Even once I knew a solution to an area it would often take several attempts to get it to work. I'd much rather play a game were the time is spent solving puzzles rather than wrestling with seemingly inconsistant physics. Some of the controls seem over complicated - after returning to the game after a few months was unable to remember or figure out how to solidify a piece (you hover your cursor over the piece, hold q, left click, then press e). This was further complicated by the lack of a control menu in the game's settings, and while it was mentioned 2 years ago it was in the works, there isn't much indication of dev support since then.

I don't think Metamorphic is a bad game, but I didn't really enjoy it, particularly the last few levels, primarily due to puzzle design.

For more puzzle game and platformer recommendations, check out my Curator page

The Witness is probably the best puzzle game I've played. There's a vast number of excellent puzzles set in a scenic yet clever environment that makes an awesome setting. The game doesn't explicitly explain game mechanics, but it doesn't need to. It does a great job allowing the player to figure things out for themselves which feels very rewarding.

This game does a great job with its puzzles, of which there's no shortage - I solved between 550-600 on my latest playthough, and I think there's still others. Most consist of a rectangular grid where you need to draw a line from one corner to another. Throughout the game you get introduced to increasingly many different symbols that constrain how you can solve the grid. Most of the symbols are introduced in their own section of the island, starting with more basic puzzles to allow you to figure out the mechanic, and then slowing ramping up the difficutly. There's many instances where you'll solve a puzzle and the next one is almost exactly identical, but with a small change that forces you to approach the puzzle differently or discover a new nuance about that symbol. Later in the game there's puzzles that combine multiple elements together to provide fresh and interesting challenges.

The puzzles are cleverly integrated into the environment of the island in such a way that the game is so much more than just a succession of puzzles. The island is very plesant to explore, and very scenic. The colors are bright and the ambient sounds make the game immersive and peaceful. There isn't any platforming involved, and in fact you can't even jump or walk off ledges, but this allows the game's focus on what it does well, the puzzles and environment. Thanks to this, there wasn't ever a point in the game where I felt I was somewhere unintended, like glitched behind a wall, as is the case in many 3D games. After playing the game for a few hours you'll realize why the environment is so extremely clever and intentional, and why it makes the game so incredible. That statement is hard to properly explain without spoiling aspects of the game, but one simple example is that there's a bare twig sticking out of the ground on a hillside near the starting area. However, if you look at it through a particular window, one of the clouds lines up perfectly to make it look like a full tree:

http://gtm.steamproxy.vip/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=1344087640
If you're looking to play this game here's what I'd recommend:
- Don't look into the game too much before starting: A lot of the magic of the game is the ah-ha moments when you figure out the logic behind a puzzle element or game area. Don't ruin that for yourself.
- Don't be afraid to leave an area temporarily unsolved: There are a few puzzles in the game that require you to beat other areas of the island first, or just take some time to think about. Just take a break, explore elsewhere, and come back when you know what to do. This is particularly applicable to the town in the middle of the island.

The Witness is a very clever and unique puzzle game that does a great job integrating puzzles into a scenic environment. With 15-20 hours of great content, I'd say it is worth the full price, and even more worthwhile if it happens to be on sale.

For more puzzle game and platformer recommendations, check out my Curator page