A Directionless Cycle

[b]9/10[/b] A sokoban style game with a lot of secrets. [b]What is it:[/b] A short multiagent/pathfinding/sokoban game. No, wait, it’s a metroidbrainia with challenging levels hidden in plain sight. No, wait, it’s a very hard puzzle game full of hidden stuff, secret messages, cryptic clues, surprising mechanics, and very clever levels. While the demo piqued my interest with its challenging-but-not-impossible levels, I didn’t expect this to become one of my favorite games of the year. It starts as a simple Sokoban-pathfinding-multiagent puzzle game, and each of its few levels has a unique feel to it. I thought I was close to finishing it, only for it to briefly mention that there may be more to discover. And yes, while I assumed it would be a 5-hour game given that I just had a couple more levels to solve, I spent 15 more hours scouring the game for secrets. It’s got a bit of Metroidvania/Metroidbrainia in it, with those “few” 34 levels hiding a lot more in them than you can see at first. https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=3514845387 The base gameplay consists of you moving all the pieces that have an arrow matching the direction you pushed. As you progress, you discover 4 different color pieces, each one moving in its own way: simple movement, two by two, sliding, and mirrored. Some levels also have arrows you can pick up to gain the ability to move in a new direction, and anti-arrows that remove the ability to move. Blue and red pieces can also push other pieces. Each level has a number of green circles which are the targets, you win when all of the circles are covered by a piece. https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=3514843716 Along the way you will also encounter chatty spots, telling you a bit of the story, and maybe some clues. But you may encounter some levels that seem to have some out of place bits, and some outright impossible levels. Can you figure out the secrets and reach the “other” levels, and unlock more powers? https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=3514844997 [b]How hard is it:[/b] Starts easy but gets quite hard, ★★★★☆. [b]How long is it:[/b] 34 main levels, but full of secrets, plus an end level, extra levels, outer levels, and bonus levels. 10-20 hours, a few levels can be skipped. There’s an optional move optimization challenge if you like to do that. [b]Level design:[/b] Excellent! [b]Quality:[/b] Good enough. Unlimited undo, but not through restarts. Very good [url=https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=3514844327]level select[/url]. Decent controls, works with keyboard and controller, but not reconfigurable. Good [url=https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=3514844448]settings[/url]. Pretty good accessibility, different pieces are marked both with color and a different shape, though there’s a moving background and the goals are only distinguished by color. Cloud saving, good achievements, custom levels. Small, fast and responsive. [b]Worth the price:[/b] Yes. [b]Most positive aspect for me:[/b] Secrets! [b]Most negative aspect for me:[/b] The extra secret outer levels are not shown in the level selection. [b]What would make it better:[/b] Steam workshop support for the custom levels. Undo through restarts. Configurable controls. A few more accessibility settings. [b]Also consider:[/b] [url=https://store.steampowered.com/app/3623490/One_More_Button/?curator_clanid=25928931]One More Button[/url], Sokoban with boxes that can only move in certain directions, also full of secrets. [url=https://store.steampowered.com/app/2770160/Maxwells_puzzling_demon/?curator_clanid=25928931]Maxwell's puzzling demon[/url], very hard sokoban with multiagents, interesting mechanics and lots of secrets. [url=https://store.steampowered.com/app/2945940/Bloxolotl/?curator_clanid=25928931]Bloxolotl[/url], multiagent sokoban with arrows on the block restricting which ways it can move. [quote]For more puzzle game reviews, news and everything puzzle-related, follow [url=https://store.steampowered.com/curator/25928931-Puzzle-Lovers/]Puzzle Lovers[/url] and check out our [url=http://steamcommunity.com/groups/puzzlelovers]Steam group[/url].[/quote] [quote]Follow [url=https://store.steampowered.com/curator/32732116-IndieGems/]IndieGems[/url] for more reviews like this one.[/quote]

《A Directionless Cycle》是一款困难且暗藏玄机的推箱解谜作品。 本作的核心机制是逻辑解谜中常见的“[b]多控[/b]”（同时操控多个可控制“角色”）机制的拓展：可控制的“角色”和被推的“箱子”本质上是同一种东西，称为“形状”，唯一的区别只有上面的白色“[b]箭头[/b]”。当玩家按一个方向键时，所有[b]包含这个方向箭头[/b]的形状都会试图朝这个方向移动。换句话说，形状上的箭头组合代表这个形状的[b]自主[/b]移动能力，比如只有在包含“上”箭头时，它才能向上移动，如果没有就不行，但仍然可以被推动。显然，包含“上下左右”所有箭头的形状就等于可以自由移动的“可控制角色”，而什么箭头都不包含的形状等于普通的“箱子”，而其它所有的组合情况都是由这套新的底层机制所拓展出来的新的可能性。 围绕“移动方向”，本作还设计了一些其它的机制拓展，比如为形状增加/减少可移动方向的箭头地块等。本作还设计了不同的形状“基底”，具有不同的移动方式，但仍然受到“移动方向”的限制。除了这些，本作还融进了一些简单的常见推箱解谜要素，比如能烧毁形状的“火”，或者在“牺牲”掉一个形状之后就可以转化成正常地面的“虚空”等等，差不多就是这样了。 看到这里，可能屏幕前的你会觉得本作的机制未免略显朴素，围绕“移动方向”的核心创意感觉是将本来就复杂的“多控”更加复杂化，显然，如果谜题设计不加考虑，就很容易沦为混乱复杂的“腾挪地狱”，变得只能靠试错去做，而没有清晰的逻辑思路。 而本作的谜题确实表面上显得非常混乱，但其实设计得还真不错，大多数的谜题核心都在于发现一个或几个“瓶颈步骤”，而这些瓶颈都是可以用巧妙的逻辑得到的，而不只是靠人脑扫描所有的情况，后者的本质其实就是试错。即使如此，想出这些逻辑也绝对不简单，我个人还是会推荐有解谜经验的“老手”玩家来玩这款游戏，而且最好不是只玩过那些纯腾挪的推箱解谜，只有培养出了基于逻辑的思考方式，我感觉才能比较理解本作谜题的这种“乱中有序”，否则这些谜题在你眼里可能就是天书。 这就是最开头我对本作的描述中“困难”的来源，那么还有“暗藏玄机”呢？我的一些好友认为这是这款游戏最精髓的神奇之处，但其实我感觉没有那么神奇。本作是通过埋藏数个机制来隐藏更深层的游戏内容的，可以看成某种“知识锁”。最近正好刚刚看完一篇讲解“知识锁”设计的好文章（[url=https://thinkygames.com/features/metroidbrainia-an-in-depth-exploration-of-knowledge-gated-games/]点此阅读[/url]），这次尝试用里面提到的分类法来讲一下，为什么本作隐藏和揭示信息的方法在我看来是一般的。 本作的很多“知识锁”，感觉就是到了特定时候，告诉你能做一件之前你确实没想过，但也没什么理由要去想的事。这种知识并没有“本质”到足以产生那种“答案原来一直就藏在我眼皮子底下”的感觉，就好像直接告诉你“某某地毯下面有某某密码”，它确实是个信息，但并没有触及到对解谜系统本身的理解，属于用完就会被抛至脑后的信息。 当然，比起上面这个例子来说，本作所藏的知识其实更像是“所有地毯下面都有密码”，所以还是和解谜系统有关联的。但本作揭示知识的方式也还是过于简单粗暴，导致知识并没有得到“转化”的过程。就比如，如果一开始给的信息是“某某地毯下面有某某密码”，而玩家需要自己想到“所有地毯下面都有密码”，或者甚至大胆假设密码和地毯的样式之间有什么隐藏的联系，这就是一种“转化”，是玩家自己的脑力活动所得来的，而不是游戏直接告诉玩家的，这就有很大的不同。遗憾的是本作并没有这样的设计，相当于直接告诉玩家“所有地毯下面都有密码”，就算是本作最深一层的隐藏，也只是[spoiler]将信息拆分成几层密码[/spoiler]而已，所以我个人没有选择完成最后这部分内容。 总的来说，本作从“表层内容”向“深层内容”的转进没有让我感到非常自然，但整体来看，至少本作最终做出的谜题设计是不错的，甚至有些时候还是挺优雅的。从这一点来看，个人还是能够给出下面的结论： [b]推荐[/b]。 [quote]普通玩家一枚，关注独立精品。不是为了特立独行，只是为了追求自我。 喜欢我的评测？敬请关注： 我的[b]鉴赏家[/b]（[url=https://store.steampowered.com/curator/44752532/]老船长OldCaptain[/url]）：推荐一些我个人觉得有特点的游戏。 我组织的[url=https://oldcaptainwzj.notion.site/164f304725d5803a957fd3c7b478e3d6]游戏推荐数据库[/url]：保存我所推荐的作品信息，方便检索作品以及索引到对应的评测，Steam和非Steam作品都有。 我的[url=https://oldcaptainwzj.notion.site/OldCaptainWZJ-16df304725d580a0a767d6ed91ddc41c]个人主页[/url]：包含更多游戏相关信息分享，上面的数据库也是内容之一。 [/quote]

I don’t usually review games til I finish them, but I wanted to give a thumbs up now since it’ll be a while before I beat this. I love the retro art style, and the concept of being inside a degrading game is intriguing. The puzzles get complex pretty quickly, but each room has a mini ‘hint level’ that lets you discover a mechanic on your own without giving anything away directly. You also have unlimited undos which I’m a big fan of. I’m still figuring things out myself, but it’s safe to say there’s a more going on here than **just** a sokoban game. So far no gameplay bugs and it runs perfectly well on the steam deck.

《A Directionless Cycle》是一款多物体协同移动的类推箱逻辑解谜游戏，总体难度有点大。我个人认为是有黑马潜质的，强烈推荐解谜爱好者可以尝试一下，由于难度原因不太建议轻度休闲玩家尝试。顺便说一下Demo不太能体现出这个游戏的实际精髓所在，精华全部藏在完整版里了，有条件的可以支持一下这个游戏，我愿称之为近期的冷门小神作。 为了说清楚这个游戏“神”在什么地方，不得不对游戏内容进行程度不小的剧透，[b]后面所有内容建议对这个游戏感兴趣的在游戏通关前先不要看[/b]。 [spoiler]作者明确借鉴了《Void Stranger》的设计思路，在表面平平无奇的关卡中设置了众多隐藏内容，使得这个游戏虽然关卡很少，但对关卡的复用程度极高，每关基本上都要体验三回，而且每次都有不一样的感受，这对关卡设计要求极高，不过作者还是做到了，虽然有一些瑕疵，但总体呈现效果非常棒。[/spoiler] [spoiler]如果你没忍住点开了剧透内容，那么后面的内容是真正的剧透，建议是完全通关之后再看[/spoiler] [spoiler]我认为可以将该游戏的内容分成递进式的四层：[/spoiler] [spoiler]1、普通通关：每一关达成绿圈通关，是最基础的目标。[/spoiler] [spoiler]2、红色额外：在进度达到一定程度后，你会意识到关卡中红圈的额外作用，从而开启新世界大门。[/spoiler] [spoiler]3、cycle能力：游戏接近末期才会获得的能力，获得后之前一些无解部分都能解了，同时还可以利用这个能力进一步探索更多的秘密，开启第二个新世界大门。[/spoiler] [spoiler]4、加密代码：这部分非常像《Void Stranger》，通过设置一些NPC，给你一些秘密指引，并让你意识到游戏中的一些摆在你面前但看不懂的加密代码如何破译，从而体验到游戏中藏的最深的内容。（PS：我个人认为这部分其实做的不是特别好，尤其是加密方式反破译很容易出错，同时部分NPC对话是一次性的，有些关键内容可能会错过）[/spoiler]

고난도로 설계된 소코반 게임입니다. 소코반을 처음 접하는 분들에겐 다소 어렵고 불친절하게 느껴질 수 있지만, 기본적인 소코반의 매력을 잘 살려 이 장르를 좋아하시는 분들께는 충분히 재미있게 즐길 만한 작품일것 같습니다. 아직 전부 클리어하진 못했지만, 숨겨진 요소들도 있어 찾는 재미가 있습니다. 또한 개발자분이 매우 친절하시기 때문에, 막히는 부분이 있다면 공식 디스코드에서 도움을 받을 수도 있습니다. --------- (25.09.25 추가) 어떻게해서 모든 레벨을 클리어해보았는데, 이전에 말씀드린 것 처럼 소코반에 익숙하지 않은 분들에게는 난이도가 꽤 높아 소코반에 자신 있는 플레이어에게만 추천드립니다. 레벨 설계가 참신하고 다양해 숙련된 유저라면 충분히 만족할 만한 게임입니다. (그리고 도전 과제 중 하나가 매우 어렵습니다.) 스포일러는 아니지만 작은 팁으로, 게임의 스크린샷처럼 종종 대사가 나오는 부분이 있는데 [spoiler]플레이 중 등장하는 대사들은 엔드게임의 단서를 담고 있어 무심코 스킵 해버리면 처음부터 다시 대사가 있는 부분들을 찾아보면서 조합해야하는 불상사가 생기므로 주의 깊게 보거나 메모해두는 것을 추천드립니다.[/spoiler]

Not normally a fan of sliding puzzles, but this game is just bursting with fun, innovation, and challenge. I thought I was nearing the end, only to find extra layers hiding in plain sight. Stick it through with this one. You'll start feasting.

i'll be completely honest this is not my type of game and i got it as a gift from a very (way too) generous someone. so far i managed to beat like 70% of the first area not counting secret zones and well actually i have no idea how to rate a genre that i don't enjoy because it hurts my brain too much ---- uhh if you like puzzle games and sokoban style stuff go try out the demo NOW it's literally FREE and if you like the demo BUY THE GAME!!11

ouugh i suck at this game but it's executed so well if you like difficult sokoban, metapuzzles, mystery, and/or system erasure games you should pick this game up it has a lot more to it than you think

This game is hard, it hurts my brain Fun though, would recommend

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