[I]Logic Town[/I] is a good but simple execution of a classic elimination constraint logic puzzle (Everett Kaser's [I]Sherlock[/I] is another in the same vein). I do recommend it because it has a kind of relaxing, hypnotic quality and the package is well put together -- if you just want to lean back and zen out, I totally recommend this -- but I will mostly write to say that I don't think this is a particularly interesting or fruitful puzzle design.
A puzzle consists of a series of columns and rows. Each column is a "location" (time) and each row is a "category" of object. The category consists of k items, one of which is in each cell. Clues allow you to either assign an object to a cell, or eliminate one or more possible objects; eventually causing a cascade that allows you to confirm every cell. This kind of constraint and elimination design is typical of logic puzzles and is true of, for instance, Picross, Sudoku, or Minesweeper. As in those, no guesses are required, and the set of possible "rules" are fairly small, and much of the attrition involves the sequential application of proper rules.
My primary dissent to the design is that the rules are atomically trivial to apply, so every puzzle feels a little bit like busywork, whereas in Picross the actual application of rules is visually non-trivial and in Sudoku or Minesweeper, the complexity of cell dependencies makes things much more interesting.
So, what are the possible rules? I believe I am listing them all here: (1) Column A does / does not contain Thing X; (2) There is one column between X and Y and it does / does not contain Z; (3) Thing X is somewhere left / right of Thing Y; (4) Thing X is / is not next to Thing Y; (5) The column with Thing X does / does not have Thing Y; (6) The column with Thing X has thing Y, and also Thing Z / but not thing Z; (7) The column with Thing X has exactly one of Thing Y or Z. I think this is everything.
You quickly come to appreciate that these rules are not especially difficult or interesting. All rules of type 1 can be immediately resolved. The affirmative setting of type 2 yields at least 2 eliminations. Type 3 yields at least 2 eliminations. The remaining types are contingent on earlier eliminations. So, you cycle through every clue looking for which one promises immediate progress. Then you make the progress, then you cycle through all the remaining clues. The UI makes this easy, but it also exposes that sometimes superfluous clues are used to make the puzzle seem more complex than it is. Any rule of Type 1 could use be baked into the cells from the start of the puzzle. Additionally, rules of type 5 are often chained transitively (Thing X has Thing Y; Thing Y has Thing Z) rather than a rule of type 6 with all three. A puzzle might have 24 clues, but by the time you rewrite them as a minimum spanning form, you're probably down at least a quarter. Other constraint games also involve you scanning a series of clues or cells looking for slack, but something feels a little more honest or organic about their complexity to me.
Only rules of Type 2 actually require much visual insight -- trying to find every span of the puzzle where X and Y are separated by exactly one column, potentially with the additional info about the item contained in between. A non-trivial number of puzzles in [I]Logic Town[/I] are specifically three columns, which would already be simple, but also makes Type 2 rules trivial.
This is not to say I never make visual mistakes. Playing on Steam Deck, the developer does an admirable job of making the 6x6 puzzles scan visually, but it does increase the odds of just making a simple oversight. And this matters for the daily competition puzzles, which time you and penalize you for errors, which should make you feel "in the zone" with your deductions but instead just feels frustrating more than challenging.
I have one really unfair complaint about [I]Logic Town[/I] in specific, and that's the writing. Inside puzzles, you can either see clues as a series of visual symbols (efficient, but you have to sometimes remind yourself which visualization is which) or as individual sentences with icons. So, like, "The building that uses [a bulldozer] must NOT use [a mop]". Some of the clues use stock sentence archetypes, some mix up the prose a little bit. But I think the thing is that this just really exposes to me how the theming is a not very interesting veneer on top of the puzzle. Obviously on a puzzle level, the themes are just interchangeable -- the category that is utensils could just as easily be colors or fish or letters. But I would hope that the existence of the theme layer would make the developer try to incorporate the theme into the puzzle. "The person who eats [salad] won't sit next to the person who eats [steak]" might tell a little story. But "The person who eats [salad] won't sit next to the person who drinks [juice]" exposes the theme as meaningless. Similarly, the clue "Thing X is not next to Thing Y" often results in Thing X sharing the same column as Thing Y. On a puzzle level, it's fine, sharing a column and being neighbors are different restrictions. But on a theme level, it just sort of exposes that there's no there there.
I don't really think my above complaint is fair. [I]Sherlock[/I] also has vestigial theming. But [I]Logic Town[/I] sells DLC (actually, a fair amount of DLC), and the number of puzzles per pack is not very high, so I take it the intended selling point of the DLC is the little diorama vignettes and the icon theme pack for the puzzle.
In sum, I think [I]Logic Town[/I] is a good implementation of a puzzle type I ultimately found myself bored with. It looks good. If you are looking to turn your brain out and zen a little bit, it's a reasonable option. The base game has a good amount of content for the price. It runs well on Steam Deck and the UI mostly works the way you want it to. But I think if you are someone who thrives on trying to unpack complex logic puzzle design, you won't really find it here.
