KnotBot is a very interesting and approachable take on a genre that is slowly gaining attraction: programming puzzles. It does so by replacing the uninviting "whiles" and "ifs" with digestible symbols - arrows, threads and controllers - and by handing the player only a few pieces at a time. Each level has a unique objective, and the solution is up to the player's skills and creativity.
[b]Gameplay:[/b] When it comes to raw gameplay, this game was quite relaxed. All I needed was a mouse. Never had to handle multiple different control types, inputs, panels, etc. The game was approachable and comfortable to play. The gameplay style is interesting in that planning/programming and playing/executing take place in the same environment/screen, so we never have to bother looking around or opening tabs. The capped grid size was also helpful in that I never had to manage tiles that were out of view, with the sole exception of the player's inventory.
However, I have encountered several game-breaking bugs in my playtime. Be it physics bugs, gameplay inconsistencies, or just the game loading up the wrong assessment of tiles in a level.
[b]Graphics:[/b] The graphics of this game are quite lovely. (Almost) everything fits in thematically: plushy, soft and hand-stitched. It's colorful without being distracting, and the overall style is cartoonish and simple without being crude or cheap. I did, however, find the level selection to be quite lacking in both details and in coherence.
[b]Mechanics:[/b] The actual pieces of the puzzle were rather simple. While that was great for the first few levels, I felt a lack of dynamic functionality with them. For instance, the "use" and "attack" actions are mechanically the same, only with different contexts. The rotate piece, albeit useful and interesting in that it doesn't deal with the actual logic itself and rather the representation of actions, felt underexplored. Some more pieces could have been interesting to see, like perhaps a "for" piece with a preset or configurable number of uses, or a jump/double-move piece.
[b]Puzzle Design and Difficulty Curve:[/b] The puzzles in this game were actually quite interesting in their variety, and the difficulty curve was surprisingly well-balanced, but I found that, for the most part, puzzles didn't really require much in terms of "thinking outside the box". I understand why that would be the case in the introductory levels, but a lot of late game levels were some variation of "distribute prop across a line". Be it planting seeds, giving apples or stacking pyramids, they all had similar mechanics and gameplays. I did, however, find the final puzzle rather interesting in how different from the rest of the puzzles it was. I knew the solution right away and managed to solve it on my first try, so to me it was on the "very easy" side, but more puzzles with that sort of "outside the box" mentality would have been quite fun to see. There was one puzzle in which I got stuck for a couple of days, but that was my own fault for assuming that what was actually the solution to the puzzle was somehow equal to a different approach that didn't solve the puzzle in the optimal number of steps.
[b]Story:[/b] This game had none, which I quite appreciate, as I believe it would've distracted from the gameplay.
[b]Music and Sound Effects:[/b] The music in this game was really good. Generally smooth and soft, fitting for thinking. However, at times, I did find it a tad distracting. For instance, the desert theme kept taking away my focus from the game. I do appreciate the separate sliders for volume and music, though! As for sound effects, some of them were quite complementary, while others were a bit loud and/or misplaced.
[u][b]Overall Thoughts[/b][/u]
In a broad sense, this game was good. It had an interesting premise, cute artwork, and a fun gameplay. But the reason why I'm marking this as "Not Recommended" is because, [u]in its current state[/u], the game ends up falling short. The game is overall very short, with few levels and few mechanics. The bugs I've encountered have made playing it either awkward or frustrating. The current price tag for it is, in my personal opinion, a tad high for what this game offers in terms of replayability. I do recommend buying this game if you can get it on a sale though, and I'd most certainly highly recommend it if we had some of those bugs fixed and maybe some new levels added. If this game had some sort of level editor then, I'd even pay extra! It's a very promising and engaging type of game with quite a lot of potential that I fear is unmet.
