[b]5/10[/b]
Sliding puzzle game for speedrunners.
[b]What is it:[/b] A sliding game, you play as the titular Benny, a green blob, sliding in one of the four directions until an obstacle stops him. First you have to collect a few gems, then you have to reach the exit. There are five chapters of ten levels each, with a new mechanic introduced in each chapter. Other than basic walls, you’ll encounter deadly spikes, fragile walls that only stop you once, bumpers that reflect you back or at 90 degrees, switches and doors, and paired teleporters.
With the exception of the last two or three levels in each chapter, the puzzles are easy, and that’s because the focus is on memorizing them and solving them as fast as possible, since that's the only thing influencing how many stars you get for a level. And I really mean as fast as possible, even the smallest pause in movement will prevent you from getting three stars. Almost anyone can “solve” all the puzzles in a little more than an hour, so this really isn’t a game for puzzle lovers, but for speedrunners.
And since it doesn’t pose an intellectual challenge, it has a different challenge. Instead of solving each level one by one, you can play a whole chapter at once with your choice of “challenges”: randomly flipped, blind, survival.
Outside the game content, the implementation is quite basic. 8bit graphics, you choose the content size, not the window size (you choose the size of each cell, and if the content doesn’t fit in the window, it just scrolls), quirky sounds, and no steam integration. I for one have better things to do than committing these easy levels to memory in order to get all 3 stars, especially since uninstalling the game will move all my progress into oblivion.
There’s supposed to be support for custom levels, but the instructions just say to download an excel file in a special folder, with no indication what the format is, where to get these excel files from, and no in-game editor.
I cannot recommend this as a puzzle, and I'm sure there are better choices for speedrunners.
[b]How hard is it:[/b] Trivial to easy, only one level can be considered complex, but only because it is very big.
[b]How long is it:[/b] 50 levels, under two hours to solve, but the game is focused on replaying until you can solve them without pause from memory, and if you want to do that it may take many more hours of practice.
[b]Level design:[/b] Basic, but decent for this kind of game.
[b]Quality:[/b] Not good. Timed levels, no undo, basic puzzle design, unattractive graphics and sounds. Basic controls, non-configurable. A few settings. No cloud saving, no achievements, no workshop or leaderboards.
[b]Worth the price:[/b] No.
[b]Most positive aspect for me:[/b] A few interesting levels.
[b]Most negative aspect for me:[/b] Focused on speed, not on thinky puzzles.
[b]What would make it better:[/b] Custom level editor and workshop support. Undo. Steam integration.
[b]Also consider:[/b]
[url=https://store.steampowered.com/app/2789650/IceFitter/?curator_clanid=25928931]IceFitter[/url], a hard sliding puzzle game.
[url=https://store.steampowered.com/app/2222540/BITTRIP_RERUNNER/?curator_clanid=32732116]BIT.TRIP RERUNNER[/url], if you’re looking for a good game in which memorizing levels and fast fingers are required.
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