I really tried to like this. It's very close to be excellent but they just didn't quite nail the very nebulous "good puzzle design" issue. I think the main problem I had is that the designer(s) treated every new level as building on all previous levels, not just conceptually but also mechanically. Almost every new puzzle mechanic, once introduced, is used in all future puzzles. And the game is long, easily twice as long as it needed to be. As the number of elements in a puzzle space rises, the available interactions go up exponentially. So by the end puzzles are these sprawling spaces with dozens of potential next steps to prune through which makes it feel more like random fumbling a lot of the time, as opposed to the sought after "a ha moment". Add to this that the mechanics are very "fiddly", you're often going to need to launch one cube off another an angle but there nothing in the game which snap it to the right place, you just have to eyeball it. It's very common to have the solution in your head but spend 20 minutes just wrangling the pieces into the right alignment. If they had made each segment about half the length and focused things to build reasoning skills about the game's world rather than just laying mechanics forever I think this could have been a real winner.

All the above is really a shame because the 3D art, lighting effects, sound, etc all completely gorgeous. I see in other reviews that some found the characters annoying and while I can see how they would rub some the wrong way, I really liked them. It felt like a very "real" set of people, more rough edges than sci-fi usually shows (swearing, being sarcastic, having an unpleasant phone call with an ex). The ending is a bit "and then it was over" but it does the job nicely in the context of a Portal-a-like lightweight story.

If you get frustrated part way through (I made it almost exactly halfway and then rage quit on one extra fiddly puzzle I had to completely restart 3 times), there's some excellent YouTube videos of the whole thing you can just blitz through to see the mechanics that get added and watch the ending, it was a much better way for me to experience the game and it might be for you too.

I really tried to like this. It's very close to be excellent but they just didn't quite nail the very nebulous "good puzzle design" issue. I think the main problem I had is that the designer(s) treated every new level as building on all previous levels, not just conceptually but also mechanically. Almost every new puzzle mechanic, once introduced, is used in all future puzzles. And the game is long, easily twice as long as it needed to be. As the number of elements in a puzzle space rises, the available interactions go up exponentially. So by the end puzzles are these sprawling spaces with dozens of potential next steps to prune through which makes it feel more like random fumbling a lot of the time, as opposed to the sought after "a ha moment". Add to this that the mechanics are very "fiddly", you're often going to need to launch one cube off another an angle but there nothing in the game which snap it to the right place, you just have to eyeball it. It's very common to have the solution in your head but spend 20 minutes just wrangling the pieces into the right alignment. If they had made each segment about half the length and focused things to build reasoning skills about the game's world rather than just laying mechanics forever I think this could have been a real winner. All the above is really a shame because the 3D art, lighting effects, sound, etc all completely gorgeous. I see in other reviews that some found the characters annoying and while I can see how they would rub some the wrong way, I really liked them. It felt like a very "real" set of people, more rough edges than sci-fi usually shows (swearing, being sarcastic, having an unpleasant phone call with an ex). The ending is a bit "and then it was over" but it does the job nicely in the context of a Portal-a-like lightweight story. If you get frustrated part way through (I made it almost exactly halfway and then rage quit on one extra fiddly puzzle I had to completely restart 3 times), there's some excellent YouTube videos of the whole thing you can just blitz through to see the mechanics that get added and watch the ending, it was a much better way for me to experience the game and it might be for you too.