[i]Disclaimer: Received free from developer to review. It's also my first title accepted through the new curator system. Like usual, I won't let this bias my review.[/i]
[b]Briefly: [i]Slash/Dots.[/i] is a physics puzzler about causing clever stuff to happen through cutting other stuff. The puzzle design ranges from acute to tedious.[/b]
Physics puzzles are a tough genre, since many problems necessarily have several solutions. In [i]Slash/Dots.[/i] your task is to make two marbles touch each other. You accomplish this by strategically cutting wood pieces (by mouse click & drag). Simple enough?
[h1]Physics 101[/h1]
Level usually (but not always) begins with a (meta-)stable scenario: cutting something will send the marbles or at least pieces of wood sliding, falling or flying. Optimally, a few cuts at strategic spots will beat the level and make you feel smart.
The physics is used cleverly. There are devices that sometimes act effectively as levers, or transporters, or flippers, or wheels.
At their simplest they push either marbles or other wooden sticks. The special items include couple kinds of perpetually rotating wheels, resulting in rather complex machines.
[h1]Levels: some fun, some... not[/h1]
The best levels, in my opinion, were the ones in which one or several well-placed cuts would win the level.
However, sometimes levels have a timing component, like when a certain stick is rotating and a specific cut has to be made at the correct time. The time slows down while holding a cut, helping with the timing to a degree. With simplest puzzles timing mechanic works fine.
But with more complex ones, especially when combining two or more timing puzzles together or having moving pieces to cut, the puzzles grow tedious. For example, in a certain level a marble is rolling along a slide and one has to cut another piece to fall and catapult the marble with a lever to the other marble high up.
Without other guiding mechanisms, correct timing quickly becomes more luck than calculation, as the marble swings into every other direction but the correct one. Similar examples are abound the later levels. When challenge feels more luck even after guessing a proper solution (if timed correctly) with trial and error, there's a problem.
Thankfully, you can skip any level at any time with a cost of pride.
[h1]Setting shenanigans[/h1]
Despite being [i]Unity[/i] game, the launcher has a rather short and obscure list of resolutions (1280x800, 1440x900, 1600x1024 and 1680x1050). Though the game ran fine despite.
More annoying was that the in-game options are also scarce: you can only disable (but not adjust the volume of) sounds and the hasty, [i]incredibly loud[/i] violin/string music that runs on the background (check the trailer for an example of the style).
[h1]Some final remarks[/h1]
I beat 95 of the 103 levels, while trying numerous times the eight (8) ones I ended up skipping because of their tediousness. This took me some 3.5 hours, so I'd guess that's the amount of content you'll be getting.
What would make it better? The length is appropriate for the full price but it would do well with more fun levels and less of those that require superhuman precision and timing, or luck combined with dedication. Also, unlike most games I review it doesn't have Steam achievements at this time: I would happily (with a pinch of wrath) beat the rest of the levels with that extra motivation.
Because of its flaws, I'd give it a mixed review if able, but frankly it's an alright puzzler for the most part. If you like physics puzzlers, I'd still wait for a sale of at least ~$1 (-50%).
[url=http://store.steampowered.com/curator/9997062/]~Twistorian Curator~[/url]
