"What's a Squingle?" In short, it's like a lovechild of "Cosmic Sugar" and classic maze puzzlers the likes of which Sierra and other early pioneers could only have imagined while on acid and trying to dream the universe into being.
[b]The Good:[/b]
[b]1. Art/Style --[/b] The psychedelic visuals in Squingle are in a class of their own. Rich color fields pulse and writhe in the form of semi-organic maze structures, which themselves stretch and twist in colorful, liquid transparency across the playspace. The effect is brilliant and hypnotic even on an LCD based headset like the Index, and OLED only makes it even more intense if you run an original Rift, Odyssey, Vive, or Vive Pro 1.
[b]2. Difficulty --[/b] Squingle seems deceptively easy at first -- you move a pair of slowly rotating orbs through a maze. Not too hard, right? Depends on your preferences -- you choose your difficulty naturally and intuitively, without a traditional menu.
If all you want is to progress through the game casually and see the end, no problem, for the most part, you'll find a relaxing, gentle to moderate challenge that should be accessible to most players. (The last 2 chapters, Awaken 1 and 2, do have some teeth to them, but if you find yourself stuck, a few deaths will trigger a hint on how to proceed to the next checkpoint in the maze.) If you get frustrated, you can always skip the level to come back to later when you're de-stressed. You unlock maps an entire chapter at a time, so it's very unlikely you'll find yourself totally blocked from proceeding in the game if you get stuck on one particular maze.
But if you want to push yourself by collecting *all* the green orbs in a maze, or clear a level without taking damage, it gets harder and requires more puzzle solving, both in terms of mental skills *and* dexterity -- Squingle uses both angles to challenge the player.
If you want to make it harder still, you can aim for the fastest time, racing against other players' times on the leaderboard, or against yourself -- when you play a map, the game records a ghost of your playthrough, like a lot of classic sports racing games. And if you want to unlock a crazy, "roller-coaster ride" replay from *within* the maze, you'll need to clear it cleanly and quickly. (If you are especially prone to motion-sickness, while Squingle does provide you with a cockpit-like cage to give a visual reference point during these replays, it can be quite a trip still depending on the movements you made solving the maze. Just a heads-up to more delicate players.)
A side note for players who are especially looking for a challenge -- I personally found the difficulty to start climbing quickly in the 2.X series of maps, so if you're working through Chapter 1 and think they're too easy, give it a little longer, it's about to ramp up, and will continue to increase in difficulty as you go.
[b]3. Replayability --[/b] The optional competitive angle of Squingle gives it some replayability if you're the type to shoot for high scores in games.
[b]4. Music --[/b] The soundtrack for the game is a lovely, chilled-out synthetic ambient score, very relaxing and meditative. If you're playing with a haptic vest on, you'll get a nice gentle thump in your chest from the bass elements.
[b]5. Accessibility --[/b] Squingle's fully playable seated or standing, so those with limited space or limited physical mobility can still enjoy it. For best experience, I'd recommend standing, the last couple chapters are significantly easier if you can move around a bit to peek into the tunnels. Up until that point, though, I played comfortably sprawled out in my beanbag chair on the floor.
[b]6. Runtime --[/b] First-time playthrough for me was about 4h15m, and I ended with 35% completion in terms of orbs and petals. Felt pretty good to me -- not too short, not too long.
[b]The Bad:[/b]
Nothing, really. The game's quite polished, and knows exactly what it wants to be. If you're not into mazes or movement puzzles, it won't be for you, end of story. But if you are, it's honest about what it is, and you'll likely enjoy it.
[b]The Ugly:[/b]
[b]1. Difficulty Spike --[/b] There's a couple of levels near the end that are a bit gnarly at one point each, Awaken 1.7 (there's a hairpin turn near the end of that map that's pretty unforgiving) and Awaken 2.8 (an overlapping curl where you need to get through a hard to see area with little tolerance for error). There were a few moments of... spicy language when I got snagged on those for a while, but they're doable, so if you get stuck, take a break, stretch, and try again later when you feel like revisiting those or any other map you find especially hard to beat.
[b]Nerd Stuff:[/b]
Played on Valve Index + Knuckles at 120hz, driven by an Intel 10900K + NVidia RTX3090. Framerate was flawless, and Index support was excellent. No issues with visual rendering, and the Knuckles bindings can accommodate players who prefer to use the Grips to grab and rotate the maze - gentle pressure to grab, and just relax your grip to let go, no need to worry about having to keep your hands wide open to avoid unwanted grabs/holds. To activate this mode, just pick "Grip" for how to grab/rotate the maze in the Options menu.
[b]Final Thoughts:[/b]
Squingle's a beautiful, psychedelic maze-puzzler that's friendly both to casuals and competitive types, with a rich presentation and the temptation to replay to shoot for a higher score on each map, much like classic arcade games. If you're a fan of mazy movement puzzles that you can relax to, give it a shot!
[b]Disclosure:[/b]
I helped with testing Squingle on the Index, and received a key for free.
