Where is my Heart?

[b]Where is my Heart[/b] is a puzzle platformer with some good ideas, one that became quite frustrating over the course of playing it, and several questionable design decisions. While not exactly a bad game, by the end of my playthrough my opinion on it had lowered enough that I cannot recommned it; there are plenty of other games in the genre more deserving of your time. The gameplay consists of around 20 short levels, where you must navigate three characters to the end and optionally collect hearts. The three characters can serve as platforms for each other, and on some levels have unique powers that are needed to solve the puzzles. The main gimmick, however, is the way that instead of showing the level in a single screen, it is broken into segments which are arranged quasi-randomly. The challenge is then to figure out the actual layout of the level from this presentation. At first, I thought this was an interesting idea; but it quickly wore out its welcome. This is especially true when you must jump from one segment to another; even the simplest jump becomes unnaturally hard when you can't see your target or the whole arc, and to me it feels like fake difficulty. There are a couple of technical issues that also worsen the experience. The absence of gamepad support is annoying; while not necessary, I would have preferred to play it that way. Also, in a game where you are challenged to get all collectables in each level without dying, the absence of a [i]restart level[/i] button is a criminal oversight. Instead, you must quit to the level select screen and re-select the level you are playing on, and in the more challenging levels that quickly becomes pointlessly frustrating. I've certainly played worse games in my time, and [b]Where is my Heart?[/b] is well-presented, distinctive, and inexpensive. But even at its best I'd only recommend this half-heartedly, and together with the irritations I have to say no.