[b]duline[/b] is a geometric puzzler, if you've ever heard of such a thing. I wouldn't put it in the same hat as tangrams and whatnot, feels closer to a draw a line puzzler, but what do I know?
the task is simple: cover all the green tiles on the level with as few lines (chains, as the game calls them) as possible, white areas are off-limits. chains can't be longer than 12 pixels, but you have two colors to work with, so once you drew a blue one, you can switch to orange, then back to blue, etc. if you succeed, the border turns green and you'll hear a soft ding. the chances of getting a sensory overload from the game are practically non-existant.
what the game calls bridges are tiles that cover non-green areas and the secondary goal is to make the chains as short as possible by eliminating as many of the unnecessary blue/orange tiles as possible. you'd think if there are 3 green pixels, you can just plonk 3 blue pixels on them, done. except if the goal is to do it in 2 chains, you're over the limit, very much not done.
[b]there's no timer or fail state[/b], it's all about optimization, finding where to place what, then fine-tune until you meet at least the chain requirement, but ideally the score as well. except [b]score requirements are hidden until you solve a few levels[/b], so you don't even know what you're aiming for. I found this beyond baffling but couldn't convince the developer, so it is what it is.
there are [b]41 levels[/b], 10 are considered the tutorial, that's where [b]game rules are explained[/b] on a couple of screens (should be in the main menu). the rest of the puzzles are unevenly distributed among easy, medium and hard level packs, everything is unlocked from the start and [b]individual mid-level progress is saved when you quit[/b].
[b]controls are non-rebindable and not that great.[/b] left click places blue tiles, right click places orange tiles, they can overwrite each other, middle click erases both. there's a level reset and undo/redo buttons, the latter also with [b]hotkeys unnecessarily requiring the ctrl key[/b], because microsoft word is the one to imitate in puzzle games. can't even simply mouseover a chain to check how long it is, gotta hold ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ ctrl for that as well. though the current big-ass numbers constantly in the way wouldn't be ideal either. [b]the reason for not including mouse wheel undo/redo is quite idiotic[/b] too. it's because some people might have a dodgy mouse with the wheel acting up and they wouldn't know why the game undid something instead of erasing a tile. come on, really? and what if one or both of the buttons are acting up on their broken mouse? or the ctrl key on their keyboard?
graphics could hardly be more minimalistic, the music is good at being unintrusive in the background. separate volume settings and windowed mode with a resizable window are all the settings, no real need for more. no on-screen level numbers or goals, only a counter that changes colors when you reach said goals. neither are the preferred way of doing things.
while the game didn't do much for me, something I can't put my finger on was missing, there's nothing horribly wrong with it either, except some uncomfortable controls and the stuff mentioned above, all of which were discussed with the developer in vain. if the concept sounds interesting in any way, [b]try the demo[/b] and go from there, though the price is crazy, I [b]wouldn't recommend paying more than a dollar or two[/b].
