[b]sokodice[/b] is one of those cube-rolling puzzlers you could fill the grand canyon with. instead of colored cubes you're bothering regular 6-sided dice, so numbers need to be matched instead of colors, but same general idea.
the [b]132 levels[/b] are divided into 11 worlds, 6 regular levels open up one by one for the most part, then you can have a go at 6 bonus levels, or at that point move on to the next world with a new mechanic building on ones already encountered. icy tiles make the cube slide until it hits a wall, turbines essentially do the same, except going up against them still rotates the cube, and twirly tiles rotate the cube in place once stepped on.
there's also the usual crumbly blocks, disappearing after a single step, and later the cubes themselves start acting up. the brown one in the desert rotates after every move, the one made of stone isn't affected by ice or wind, the ice one slides after every move regardless of surface, etc. while I love a good sliding game, those parts were the most frustrating here.
simply completing every level [b]takes about 3 hours[/b], but getting gold on all of them by doing it within the suggested move limit isn't gonna happen that fast, though even without too much effort I often went way below par (and way above elsewhere).
[b]the presentation is excellent.[/b] not only does every world look and sound different, but also the bonus levels in each, offering double the amount of great-looking art styles and music, most of which is pleasant. my least favorite track was the one in the winter area and found the accompaniment to the bonus levels in the penultimate world the best.
[b]there's no story, but you could easily create some sort of narrative in your head[/b] that spans numerous time periods, seasons, and locations high and low, far and wide, ending in the distant future where cute-looking faceless human-like beings seen earlier probably don't exist anymore. missed opportunity if you ask me.
the game can be played with mouse or keyboard. with the former you have to click arrows around the selected cube instead of the more typical swiping action. wasd and arrows both work for movement, so [b]non-rebindable controls[/b] aren't a major issue. [b]unlimited undo[/b] is available as well, but it took a long time for hotkeys to get patched in, and all the spinning after a restart is really annoying. end-of-level animations can't be skipped with the keyboard either, nor restart or next level be selected.
separate volume settings are available, you can even hide the fancy presentation for a more barebones look, but [b]no windowed mode[/b], alt+enter doesn't work anymore either. and while the game looks great, due to the angle some camera controls would be handy too. there's a [b]largely useless transparency toggle[/b] (tilde on the keyboard), as dots on most dice also disappear, but without camera rotation it's also necessary sometimes to check what numbers are on the tiles.
even with all the variety both in mechanics and presentation, at its core it's a simple puzzler done mostly well, and after finally getting some love after release, it's now in a recommendable state, though it could still use some polish (and windowed mode that actually works, unlike previous attempts, ending in its complete removal because it's easier than fixing it), so [b]wait for a sale[/b].
