Colors

[b]3/10[/b] A simple logic game, like minesweeper with colors, but the implementation is very unpolished. [b]What is it:[/b] A logic puzzle game, in a grid where every other cell is a clue, you must figure out which one of the four possible colors the other cells must have. Every clue cell has four (or in the case of edge cells, three) colors inside, which indicate the colors of its direct neighbors. Starting with obvious clues like “4 yellow neighbors”, and combining clues with common neighbors and the already solved colors, you have to fill in the target cells with the right colors until the entire grid has been solved. Depending on how quickly you solved the level, you get between one and three stars. You do this in increasingly big grids, from 3x3 to 19x19, and then just replay the levels for as long as you want. Luckily the levels are randomly generated, so there is some replay value. This is an interesting game idea, a simpler kind of minesweeper that doesn’t really involve numbers or all 8 neighbors, and would be good for a bit of relaxing puzzle time. But the implementation as it is right now needs a lot of work, and I cannot recommend it. https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=3329621765 The most critical bug is that levels fail to unlock. The first time I played this game, it just happened to 15x15, which was skipped and instead 17x17 was unlocked, with no way to play 15x15. But now I’m playing on a different device, and it so happens that no new levels unlock. I had to play 9x9 five or six times to get 11x11 to unlock, and now I don’t have the patience to see how long until 13x13 finally unlocks. There is a tutorial explaining how to play the game, but it is crowded and poorly written, with typos and broken English, lots of things displayed on the screen, very small text, and even the wrong image next to the “this is the solution” text showing the unsolved puzzle instead of the solution. https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=3329622999 There are no settings other than a mute toggle. The game plays in a small 830x500, borderless, unresizable window, and on my 4k screen it literally takes just 5% of the screen! The text is barely legible, and the 19x19 grid is very hard to see without any way to zoom in. The time is displayed in a weird way, “9:3” instead of “9:03”, and having the timer always present makes it stressful instead of relaxing to solve levels. Still, the time isn’t too strict, I can solve the levels with plenty of time to spare, but I’m a fast solver. If you re-solve a level with fewer stars than before, the level select screen only remembers the last solve, so you may lose stars. The levels are rather easy, there’s almost always one or more obvious starting points, and once you solve a few cells, the rest are trivial to fill in. Once you have three known neighbors, the fourth one is obvious, which means that a new clue now has three known neighbors. In terms of complexity, I’d put this somewhere between color by number and minesweeper. On the larger grids, it’s not just the cell size that stands in the way of comprehending what you see, but the fact that unsolved cells are also colored, so it takes a while to even find which cells you still need to solve. https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=3329623054 More proof of how unpolished the game is, the application is called “MainWindow” in the taskbar, and it only comes with a tiny app icon that doesn’t look good in the task switcher. Overall, this could be a relaxing puzzle, but the implementation makes it frustrating instead. One other thing to note, the developer doesn’t respond well to criticism, lashing out instead of trying to improve the game. [b]How hard is it:[/b] Mostly trivial. [b]How long is it:[/b] 9 grid sizes, must be solved in order, and sometimes they fail to unlock. Solving at least one of each size can be done in less than an hour. [b]Quality:[/b] Very poor. No mid-level progress saving. Mouse only controls. No settings, and it does need a resizable window and a full screen toggle. Very poor accessibility, tiny cell size, no colorblind settings, hard to distinguish between clue and solution cells, or between solved and unsolved cells. No cloud saving, no achievements. [b]Worth the price:[/b] Not in its current state, maybe if the developer improves it. [b]Most positive aspect for me:[/b] Relaxing puzzle game. [b]Most negative aspect for me:[/b] Hard to distinguish which cells still need solving, especially when they’re so tiny. [b]What would make it better:[/b] Allow the window to be resized, and add a fullscreen toggle in the settings. Volume settings with sliders, not just a mute toggle. Mid level progress saving. Make sure new sizes unlock properly, or better, have all of them unlocked from the start. Add support for custom grid sizes. Add 2 and 6 color modes. Keyboard/controller support. Add a white mode. Instead of purple, make the unsolved cells black or white. Add some kind of colorblind mode, either different color themes, or patterns/symbols instead of colors. Allow zoom and pan. Add cloud saving and achievements. Add a setting to disable the timer. [b]Also consider:[/b] [url=https://store.steampowered.com/app/547050/RYB/?curator_clanid=25928931]RYB[/url] and [url=https://store.steampowered.com/app/1932350/LogiNode/?curator_clanid=25928931]LogiNode[/url], good logic games with colors. [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]