[b]TLDR[/b] Simple grid obstacle course game, no real novelty, rudimentary in general. [6/20⭐, 5h🏅, 2/5💡]
[b]Context[/b] Pixel Boy: Lost in the Castle, is a traditional grid obstacle course puzzle game, with elements of Sokoban or Chip’s Challenge. The game seems to be developed by a small company, so I have no pleasure in this review, but I can’t in good faith recommend this game.
[b]Writing[/b] There is no plot, not even a well-defined context.
[b]Aesthetics[/b] The title is apt: there is a pixel boy. Except that everything else is not, and seems to rely on stock resources. The soundtrack is a single track, which is decent for an opening screen, but not to be repeated through ~100 levels.
[b]Gameplay[/b] The game plays like a traditional Sokoban or Chip’s Challenge without the “action” element (there are traps, buttons, holes, boxes, but no enemies or moving objects requiring quick reflexes), and there’s no novelty or twist in the mechanics.
Puzzles aren’t the typical “difficult to figure out, easy to solve” kind that I’ve come to expect in modern games. Instead, they resemble the design from traditional where levels are more maze-like, expansive and generic, with the (reduced) difficulty coming from making a mistake halfway through. There are interesting levels, but they’re few and far between. You can easily die, and hit deadends, in which case you have to restart the level. There is the ability to skip up to 3 unsolved levels.
It doesn’t help that the implementation is very rudimentary. The controls are very clunky (e.g., when changing direction while moving). There is no undo, which I assume is a conscious decision. There is not even a keyboard shortcut to reset a level. The achievements are not working, at all. On a positive note, the progress of each level is saved after quitting.
[b]Value[/b] It took me a bit more than 5h to beat the ~100 levels, so less than 4mins per level. There is a single progress slot, but you can always revisit previous levels. The game itself is linear, except for the ability to skip a few levels, although a few levels have alternative solutions. Achievements, were they to work, were related to progressing the game.
[quote][i]For more puzzle-game reviews and curated lists check out the [url=https://store.steampowered.com/curator/43326007-The-Clueless-Adventurer-Puzzle-Trove/]Puzzle Trove[/url].[/i][/quote]
