Axyz

Vaporwave confusion Axyz is a vaporwave inspired puzzle platformer ball rolling game, however the fact that you're moving a ball is nothing more than an aesthetic. The main gameplay loop involves moving your ball across cube platforms to pick up some cassette tapes, keys, and spinning rings. To finish a level, you simply need to find all the keys in the level to unlock the end. If you want to complete the level fully, you need to collect every possible pickup. The only difference between the cassette tapes and rings is that you need a certain number of cassettes to unlock future levels. If you pick up everything in a level, you also get a little golden statue for that level. The main thing that makes this game difficult is the fact that you are able to rotate gravity based on where the ball is currently sitting. If you roll around an edge, you shift the entire axis of gravity, which can all you to jump to disconnected platforms you would otherwise have no method of access. You can also hit "X" on the keyboard to shift gravity 180 degrees to fall onto platforms above you. Combine this with rules on which edges you can rotate around, spikes traps, platforms that crumble, jump pads and more and you end up with a puzzle platformer that has a good amount of depth. This gameplay is all wrapped up in a vaporwave aesthetic. It's a nice aesthetic, but nothing special compared to other similar styles in games. The music is also vaporwave and you have the ability to pause or skip tracks during any level, so you've got more control than usual. The beginning levels of this game, while simple, are enjoyable to complete. As the game progresses and the difficulty increases, the game becomes more confusing and tedious to complete. With Puzzle platformers, the things that I look for are fun and expressive movement mechanics and puzzle that are easy to decipher, but require you to figure out the trick in completing them. Both of these aspects are lacking in Axyz. There is no expression in Axyz, you have very strict rules in the movement, so really this is less of a platformer, and more of a complex input machine. So, the whole crux of the game being fun, is the puzzles, and I find the puzzles to be more annoying to complete than fun. Because the movement mechanics are not inherently enjoyable to play with, the only thing you have to focus on are the puzzle levels. These puzzle levels feel more difficult to simply understand than difficult to complete. You have very limited view options which makes seeing where you are vs where you want to go. Each level is mostly confusing to navigate, especially since you can't pull the camera away to get a better view of your surrounding, and the way in which the jump works for navigating between platforms, you'll end up missing a good number of times because you can't tell if a lower platform is 1, 2, or 3 space away from the one you're on. I fully completed about 3 of the 8 included areas and just didn't have interest in continuing. I don't think that this game is awful or poorly made, I just think that the main mechanics are more annoying than fun. If you are interested in a game that is more difficult to navigate than to overcome and don't mind rigid movement mechanics, then you might love this game. However I'm not willing to hit my head against the wall of confusion when everything else about the game is so lack luster.

> Ballin' ## Why - Immaculate vaporwave vibes and soundtrack - Chill but satisfyingly challenging puzzles - Consistently introduces new mechanics with a smooth difficulty curve - Diegetic menus and UI elements are great ## Why Not - Some levels require quickish reactions, so maybe not ideal for pure puzzle heads ## Impressions I initially picked up Axyz for my wife because she played Kula World as a kid, but ended up playing more than her and now I'm planning to 100% it. The puzzle gameplay is great, starting with a simple premise and gradually expanding it with new mechanics as you progress through each disk. Puzzles involve plenty of spatial reasoning to effectively navigate the maze of floating blocks with your jump and gravity reversal, collecting tapes, points and keys along the way. Despite not generally being a huge fan of puzzle games this one really appeals to me; it's pretty easy to sink into a zen state of just trying stuff out between the visuals and soundtrack. Presentation is also excellent; the menu is the desktop of a very 90s PC and you select levels by slotting floppy disks into said PC. Each floppy disk has its own vaporwave-style visual theme for the background and the soundtrack is a great fit, complete with nostalgic tape switching sounds as a transition between each track. Bonus levels for each disk offer additional challenge with a noticeable bump in difficulty, and the overall game smoothly transitions from opening disks where beating the high score of each level is simple but satisfying to later disks where I'm struggling to get all the tapes before finishing. As a side note it works great on Steam Deck; I mostly played it there for the first few disks and had no issues at all. Overall a great game I can't believe has only sold 2 000 copies as I'm writing this; severely underrated and deserves much more attention that it's received. You can tell the devs did this for the love of it and they did a fantastic job.

Scratch that PSX puzzle nostalgia with this little gem.

I’ve always loved all kind of puzzles, and platforming games. This game not only combines both but also adds a unique twist in how you navigate across each level. Axyz is a lot of fun, and a nice relaxing game to play that also offers a challenge. The music is very fitting and definitely a vibe. I definitely look forwards to playing more!

Great modern version of a classic puzzle platforming game that's full of good vibes and good level design.

This is a neat little puzzle game, no nostalgia for Kula World or PSX necessary. It is very WYSIWYG, you roll, jump, and invert gravity through 8 worlds of levels each one introducing some new gimmick. Took me 15 hours to 100% (not anymore since they've updated the game with extra levels). If your spatial awareness doesn't suck you probably can do it in 10. Levels could use par time to beat, otherwise the timer is rather pointless. Although the game looks like it'd be fun to speedrun.

I'm glad this exists, I also have an attachment to the PS1 game "Roll Away" or "Kula World", and this is basically like that, but way less stressful!