FlipSum - A Puzzle By Claris Richter

interesting puzzle game. Lacking polish and QOL features (not having a button to close the game is kind of insane), but it is a free game! If you like sudoku variants you might enjoy this

I like big, bombastic games. Give me massive Metroidvanias with a dozen mobility upgrades and a hundred weapons and bosses 5 times the size of the screen. Heck yeah. But I think that, on balance, I [b]love[/b] the opposite. Give me a clean minimalist morsel, a smart idea packaged by itself and delivered without anything unnecessary between me and the game. That's Flipsum. It's a game so simple that everything you need to know about it, mechanics and controls, is given to you on one simple screen. Cross out one cell from each row and column, and mark whatever's left to be added or subtracted such that those rows and columns add up to the totals on the edges of the board. Get it right, and you get a medal and another puzzle. There are several difficulties. That's it. Isn't that just perfect? Just a neat little mathsy puzzle. Pick an easy puzzle and spend a minute filling it in. Pick a hard puzzle and spend an hour chipping away at it. Win? Lose? It doesn't matter. The game isn't pressuring you. You're not grinding for unlocks. You're playing to play. I have some minor issues, as I always do. It would be nice to have an exit button, rather than having to Alt+F4. And while I appreciate the lack of unlocks to work for, no part of the game forcing you to play it, I do kinda like the idea of having different colour themes that become available with a high enough score. But... I want to be clear that, if the dev is taking notes, I actively recommend they [i]don't[/i] add that. Players don't always really know what they want, and I suspect that it would take away from the chill vibes if I was thinking "OK, but if I do 4 more 5x5s, I can try the Pink & Orange colour scheme!". This is such a pure experience, and very easy to recommend. Claris Richter; thank you.