Space Ducks: The great escape

Super petit jeu Inde qui vaut le détour ! Des puzzles qui vont du simple au difficile et qui donnent envie d'en voir plus ! Je recommande vivement !

Navigating unstable cubic planetoids where the ground often shifts under your weight felt novel in the Sokoban space, and exploration yielded some pleasantly surprising discoveries about how things interact. The mechanisms and rules were unfamiliar enough that it was sometimes hard to plan ahead, but the undo feature encouraged probing experimentation, and the puzzles were small enough that I wasn't overwhelmed by the number of possible approaches. If the game only had puzzles with one character, I might have called it too simple, but it was particularly rewarding to work out a valid path for the later puzzles in which you swap control between three different ducks. This often involved using one duck to safely launch another into a different area, or strategically sacrificing one duck to give another a better position. These nuances made the design feel more clever as I progressed. The game did end somewhat abruptly after what was apparently the final puzzle, and I was left with a nagging feeling that it could have been further developed into something larger-scale, but in its current state I still think it was a fun ride. Note that I played this after an update that increased animation speed, so I didn't have any particular problems with the pacing. My playthrough took around an hour.

A funny and challenging puzzle game. There's something on it that makes you want to keep going forward. The overall experience is nice. Recommended.

Simple and fun puzzle game, absolutely worth its price!

Space Ducks is a beautiful puzzle game with a short length and a pretty fair difficulty. Rather than being a grueling task that might make the player turn away like in so many other Sokoban games, this one helps the player along and makes a good entry point for this style. Despite how quickly the game can be played, it's very clear the developers wanted to have a distinct visual style, and I think it really increased the experience for me since it was very comforting. The audio design for the game also works well with the puzzle mechanics, which is always a pleasure to have intermingled. I also wish to mention that I played the game after the update was delivered; for my own playthrough, I found the movement to be rather crisp and satisfactory so it should be fine now for those who were bothered by slow ducks (now they'll waddle quickly to their grave with a smile). The actual puzzle elements are pretty neat, they essentially work like traditional box pushing except you have a gravity element in place as well as the ability to utilize it yourself and walk on the sides of objects. This becomes the main mechanic, though over time the game introduces at least 2 major new mechanics that are pretty interesting. The neat part of these puzzles is that none of them are super difficult, but each still manages to teach you a unique lesson. Another interesting aspect is that the puzzle titles actually provide some insight into what your goal should be, subtle hints like this I will always be a sucker for. Overall, I'm someone who would normally shy away from a game with a Sokoban tag, but this one actually grabbed my interest and held them all the way to the end. If you're looking for a puzzle game on the easy side that's completable in about an hour, then this is definitely worth picking up.

I liked the part where a duck flings his friend through space to his death

Another game with a glaringly obvious, easy to fix problem: everything is soooo slow. Moving is slow. Failure animations are slow. Success animations are slow. I'd probably have half the time I do in this game if I was allowed to play it at a reasonable pace. It's a fairly competent and even kind of interesting puzzler at its core, with interesting gravity, block-falling, and multi-character puzzles and while it's not too terribly hard it does make you think and learn its rules. And the aesthetic is... alright, the gory bits are kind of out of step with the rest of the game but it looks better than most any of the other Cosmos 9 games. I just wish I was allowed to play it at a reasonable pace. As for the bundle as a whole... it really feels like a game jam that they're making you pay to play. Half the games are either tech demos or just feel... unpolished, and they're all a bit too far on the short side to be particularly engaging. And there's no real cohesion between the graphical design or the controls meaning the whole "console" gimmick doesn't really hold up. The whole set is definitely a bit overpriced and even at the 50% off price point I can't say it felt worth the time I spent with them all. If you do have to get any games in this pack, Triga is probably worth full price, Linelith and IFO are pretty cool albeit a bit underdeveloped and probably worth it on sale, and maaaaybe Tendy and Frequency Dissonance are worth it on sale but those are hard to recommend otherwise, and the other four are either too tedious or too underdeveloped to be even worth your time, so I'd give the bundle as a whole a pass.

fun and short, wish there was a level select or some kind of indication how far along you were ingame

No time for a review so I give this game a rank C. Okay game - not bad but you can skip it or try on sale. See my profile for more details about my reviews. Additional notes: bought with the CosmOS 9 BUNDLE. Neat little puzzler, gets very thinky very quick. Smart puzzle but very basic design and UI.

短いけど楽しめた　いい塩梅のパズル シュールな雰囲気も好き　命が軽いよ