Adjacency

I have to say that I've mostly enjoyed Adjacency. For $2 there's around 4 hours of content and most of the puzzles are fun. Biggest problem with the game is that one of the special tile types is really counter-intuitive and just a chore to deal with. Thankfully can just skip the frustrating levels. Full game review: https://youtu.be/uwS3pE6JbDg

Fantastic puzzle game. It takes a simple concept (spreading colors to adjacent shapes in order to get them to their goal color) and expands upon it in brilliant ways. This is not a puzzle game that allows for random clicking until you eventually solve it. It forces you to understand how the mechanics will affect things and to deliberately manipulate things to approach your goal. The sound is also excellent, (warning: grossly overused buzz words ahead) being an ambient/atmospheric procedurally generated soundscape that responds to your actions.

[u]In short:[/u] Adjacency turns simple mechanics into smart and challenging levels. It might not be the most approachable, but after a while I found myself addicted and had a great time. The price seems pretty fair for the amount of content. [u]In long:[/u] Each of the 60 levels features an arrangement of shapes (triangles, squares, hexagons, etc.) with colored outlines. Your goal is to spread colors until everything matches the outlines. In terms of [b][u]mechanics[/u][/b] you click on a colored tile and it spreads to all adjacent tiles. This alone is rather basic, but soon different mechanics are introduced: Temporary tiles are destroyed after a single click. Dot tiles can hold a second color underneath the current color. Rotator tiles and switch tiles are mostly self-explanatory. My only gripe with the mouse-only controls is that rotators are operated with click-drag/swipe motions, which can misfire (LMB/RMB would have been better in my opinion). Once these mechanics enter the fray, the [b][u]difficulty[/u][/b] ramps up considerably. First you should try to fully understand the mechanics, but I'll frankly admit that I never realized just how brilliant and powerful the dot tiles were until the penultimate level. The game rewards planning and thoughtfully revising your strategy, especially on the later levels, where several mechanics are combined into really hard challenges. Random clicking will rarely lead to success. Unfortunately for some reason the undo button is limited to 3 moves. This forces a lot of unneeded and boring restarts. But levels almost never require more than 30 moves, which makes them seem quite doable at all times. Still, the level layouts are almost universally very clever and the difficulty ranges from easy and obvious to tough-as-nails battles about shaving off single moves. This hints at the fact that most of the difficulty arises from the optional [b][u]developer pars[/u][/b]. Matching or beating the par will mark the level as "mastered", which is only relevant for achievements. If your focus is just getting through the levels, you will probably have a considerably easier time. I, however, enjoyed the added challenge and found the par mechanic to be a valuable addition. Knowing a better solution to be possible kept me coming back and finally undershooting the par always felt really good. It took me about 5.5 hours to fully beat the game, but it should be noted that at least 1.5 hours were spent trying to beat the par on just a handful of levels. In terms of [b][u]presentation[/u][/b] the game gets passing marks. The visuals are simple, but clean. The music seemed okay, but like with most puzzle games, I quickly turned it off. This neatly leads to a few minor gripes with the [b][u]technical implementation[/u][/b]: There are no volume sliders or separate settings, just a general mute button. Unfortunately this setting is also not remembered between sessions and you need to mute the game each time you start it. The same with the par visibility (I don't know why, but by default pars are hidden). The Unity loader takes care of most other technical aspects (windowed mode, resolutions, etc.). In [b][u]conclusion[/u][/b] I had a lot of fun challenging my brain with this clever game. I'm very impressed how a few simple mechanics and just 60 levels kept me hooked for well over 5 hours. Compared to other similarly simple-looking puzzle games on Steam, the price seems a little bit high (and the -20% sale discount pretty low), but I found it to be totally worth the money as the game far exceeded my expecations.

Pros: [list][*]There is no need for any introduction or instruction. The gameplay is extremely intuitive, and the difficulty has been appropriately dialed down for the first two levels. [*]A new mechanic is introduced almost every level. This makes the gameplay feel more fresh. [*]The puzzles appear to be very well thought out, as trial and error did not work very well in this game. As a result, each success felt honestly earned. [*]Unlike a lot of other games, you can skip puzzles if you get stuck. You don’t need to solve them all either—just enough of them to unlock the next level. [*]The music and visuals were tasteful, non-intrusive, and overall pleasant.[/list] Cons: [list][*]Right after opening the game, you might have to click the blank screen to trigger the dev’s logo. No, your computer’s not frozen. [*]Can be tedious to play for more than an hour due to the minimalistic nature of the game.[/list] A very unique concept, and a real challenge. Very cleanly executed. Overall, would strongly recommend!

nice puzzle game, I like it.

This game is excellent! Whether you're looking to pick up some puzzles on your break or want something challenging to dive into, Adjacency has got you covered. Also - this soundtrack? 10/10

Solid game and a kind of Zen experience, well worth effort and the thought.

Very good!! Hard until you can understand how that particular puzzle works. Most of them work around the idea of ​​permutation, in different ways, hence the feeling of agony at first. Most of them are not intuitive at all and will require good logical planning.