The Machine's Garden

[b]the machine's garden[/b] is a story-driven puzzler about a military supercomputer coming back to life, ready for action. not the destroy all humankind sort of action, au contraire, to help people and stuff, even if we all know people can't be helped. and despite all the text there's not a single typo, which is rare these days even in games with barely any reading material. all you do is [b]draw lines to cover all the hexagons on 37 levels[/b], with mechanics like arrows acting as teleports and trap-like things that can only be entered from certain sides and they stick to you and forbid movement in certain directions, but are rotated as you roll around. unfortunately, one of my least favorite things also made it in: [b]moving multiple things at the same time[/b]. more than one level is unlocked occasionally, but a 'play next level' button would be handy. same for level numbers on top of all the random symbols. [b]controls are fine, clicking and dragging both work[/b], but at first I was annoyed by the lack of any hotkeys or menus while playing, until I realized that [b]undo is not necessary[/b]. you can only advance one hex at a time, but can go back as many as you want with a single click, which is neat (dragging doesn't work here). after a few levels a back to menu button appears in the corner, not sure why only then, but a straight-up instant level reset would be handy too, as it takes a while for all the lines to disappear if you're further into a puzzle. giving a different color to the starting hex would help too, as things get a bit complicated later on, harder to keep in mind what's what. there's a single volume slider (it's enough, there's no music) and text size can be adjusted as well (very rare, always appreciated). the crisp font doesn't match the pixel graphics (looks good, except the menu and the outro), but it's easy to read at least. no resolution options, nor windowed mode, which is a bummer. alt+enter only produces a non-resizable window, so if you really want to make it happen, you'll have to edit the registry entry. I enjoyed the game a lot, only takes [b]about 2-3 hours[/b] and it's priced reasonably, [b]definitely recommend[/b] picking it up.

군용 슈퍼컴퓨터가 잠들었던 사이 뒤바뀐 세계에서 깨어나며 일어난 일들을 기록하는 퍼즐게임 .... 설명은 뭔가 거창하긴 한데, 사실 퍼즐과 게임 내 스토리는 독립적이기 때문에 (퍼즐을 풀 때마다 기록이 1개씩 해금되는 방식이라, 퍼즐을 풀면 풀수록 스토리를 알아가는 방식이지 실제 퍼즐 자체는 스토리의 내용과 전혀 관계없다) 스토리에 너무 많은 기대는 하지 않는 게 좋다. 왜냐하면 게임의 줄거리는 전체적으로 예상이 가는 내용의 무난한 이야기이기 때문이다. 그래도 무난한 게 잘 먹힌다고, 너무 뜬금없는 엔딩으로 끝난다던가 떡밥만 뿌리고 회수를 안한다던가 하는 뻘짓은 안해서 다행이었다. 이 게임의 실제 컨텐츠인 퍼즐은 일종의 한붓그리기 퍼즐인데, 모든 육각형 타일을 한번씩만 거쳐가도록 경로를 짜면 되는 퍼즐이다. 다만, 이게 선을 긋는 개념보다는 육각형을 굴려서 타일들을 칠하는 개념이라 미묘하게 다르다. (말로는 애매할 수 있는데, 장애물 중에 육각형의 이동 방향을 제어하는 장애물이 있는데 육각형을 굴리는 형식이기 때문에 굴릴 때마다 제어되는 이동 방향이 달라진다 !) 처음에는 단순하지만, 뒤로 가면 갈수록 포탈, 이동 방지, 동시에 같은 방향으로 이동하는 클론 등등 생각할 게 많아진다. 레벨은 37개 밖에 없긴 하지만, 의외로 난이도가 있어서 3~4개의 레벨은 계속 타일 1개가 남아돌아 고생을 좀 했다. 이 때문에 플레이타임은 약 3시간 정도 걸렸고, 플레이타임 대비 적당한 가격이라고 생각한다. 결론적으로, 난이도가 약간 있지만 그래도 게임이 길지는 않아 무난하게 즐길 수 있는 퍼즐 게임. 도전과제도 모든 퍼즐만 풀면 딸 수 있을 정도로 쉬우니 한 번 해보는 걸 추천한다. 여담) 처음에 육각형을 잘못 움직였는데 되돌리기 버튼이 없어서 당황했는데, 원하는 타일을 누르면 해당 위치로 육각형이 되돌아가면서 이전 이동 경로가 사라지니 이 기능을 잘 이용하도록 하자.

Good puzzler with half a dozen tricky levels that will probably test your patience. There is a some kind of weird and creepy story also. If you like puzzles you will like this game, no timers and no limited moves.

great game; puzzles are both intuitive and methodical; just when it got too hard, I was able to solve each puzzle; 10/10 would recommend

Decent, unique puzzle game with a backstory that keeps you wanting to solve the next puzzle.

I really enjoyed the tempo for solving puzzles in The Machine's Garden. You're encouraged to keep trying things out because you can back up when they don't work, so it's one of those puzzle games where you find yourself slowly becoming literate in those spatial languages even when you don't totally understand why you're doing the patterns you're doing anymore. I think that style of play really fits the theme of a mystical super computer booting itself up to explore its post-apocalyptic surroundings.

A fantastic puzzle game with an interesting set of mechanics well explored on a hex grid. I really like the presentation and framing too. Definitely will get your brain hurting on some of the later levels, too! For the price, an absolute steal too.

Definitely I recommend it. I really enjoyed the interesting levels and the concept. Not too complex to feel tiring and not too easy to feel boring. A very good balance. Easy to understand mechanics and a little story by the side for flavour. And it comes with a compelling price.

比较短的哈密顿路径变型游戏 还不错，就是感觉玩的时候大盘不太能推，有点靠试

I picked this up after finding it in the Hidden Gems category of the Cerebral Puzzle Showcase. I was initially drawn to the game because of its satisfying pixel art graphics and punchy animations. These are definitely a highlight. There's a real charm to the crisp, expressive pixel-y goodness. 😊 The mechanics are deceptively simple, but they manage to create a surprisingly wide range of interesting and engaging puzzles. A common issue I have with some puzzle games is that the increase in complexity (and difficulty) often just means larger levels with more elements. This usually results in a vast sea of possible moves that feels more tedious than interesting to explore. A few times during my playthrough of The Machine's Garden, I worried this might be the case. But each time, I was pleasantly surprised. The clever use of certain mechanics - especially the symmetry mechanic - helped to 'prune' possible routes early on, leading to dead ends before too much time was wasted. As a result, even complex levels allowed for the formulation of meaningful constraints and clear win conditions, which made solving them feel quite satisfying. A minor nitpick: I found the story logs that pop up after each level a bit intrusive. I didn’t mind the story itself (from, what I can tell written from the viewpoint of a reawakened AI) but having new text open automatically after every level, especially early on, felt too frequent. I ended up skipping them to get back to the puzzles. Overall, this is a great game and an absolute steal at its low price.