Isles of Sea and Sky

What a trip! I didn't even finish "every" puzzle in the game, because they get way too meta for me. This game is a logical evolution of the Sokoban genre, and its cute graphics and inoffensive soundtrack will keep you attempting to solve as many puzzles as you can. The game is playable on PC or Steamdeck, and is exceptionally controller friendly. You will likely have between 5-20 hours of 'fun' with the game, but I do recommend using a guide to help you solve the pyramidion puzzles, because there's a lot you need to write down (think FEZ difficult, plus you'll need to screenshot or write down some puzzles). Using a guide to get the last few pyramidions I was missing, it took me about 35 hours to complete most of the game (100%). There's even more bonus content beyond that, but the puzzles and hints have gotten too obscure for me to care about them.

What starts off as a Sokoban like game quickly develops with various mechanics into a complex and challenging turn-based puzzle game. Each screen can contain multiple puzzles which take various retries and paths based on what you've done before. I appreciate the overall execution: There is screen reset by leaving or selecting the menu option. There are last move takeback mechanisms, so you don't have to waste time redoing an entire screen if you accidentally move one space too many, particularly useful when using a controller. There are both semi-permanent and permanent changes to a level. I admit to having to look up Sky A1 puzzle, but other than that I've generally just thought about puzzles and then come back to them later. The game does not use words to explain it's mechanisms, but lets you discover them on your own, much like an archaelogist discovers a past civilization. Further, there are so many paths that it's easy to leave one puzzle and go to the next, coming back later on when you have more experience. I do wish that they bound hot keys to the map and flag colors. --edit: on further reflection, why not the undo/reset as well? Overall, a quite enjoyable puzzler.

I'll probably continue playing a bit more to see how bad it gets, but so far game has a glaring problem: mixture of puzzle, open world, and upgrades produces situations where you are not sure if room is solvable at the current stage so you might bail out early. As a result, you might skip certain rooms because you don't see solution and end up in a state where you lack stars/solvable rooms and have to guess between 1. I've missed some path between rooms I can actually access 2. I have a room which is actually solvable with the current setup 3. I have a room with upgrade which would make some rooms solvable Clearly, some systems are there partially to mitigate the issue (e.g. you have map, so you can check which rooms are still missing; each large isle so far looks like its main objective room is solvable immediately, so your loop is "solve main room -> open doors to collect enough artifacts -> spawn elementals -> solve more rooms for stars") but I've already encountered that issue before I figured out supposedly the main loop. I've seen comments about some later puzzles being increasingly frustrating, which might make mentioned issue even more apparent

All the sliding block puzzles you could ever want! I enjoyed the look and sound of the game. It felt very satisfying to discover secrets after thinking over a puzzle for a while. Unfortunately after the second or third island the puzzles get so difficult and obtuse that I regularly had to use a walkthrough to hint my way through. Even more frustratingly, there have been major updates since the game was released, so some of the hints and playthroughs no longer apply. Eventually I got so stumped with no online advice on how to proceed so I gave up without discovering what a Pyramidion is. I wish there was more signposting on when you don’t have the tools to solve a puzzle yet. I never saw the end to the story, if seeing a mysterious girl appear and float away from your nameless, silent character counts as a “story”.

Too hard so i play rarely and shortly. I dont enjoy it so much but its okay once in a while.

Incredible game up until Frozen Spire, Charts puzzle. This puzzle reminds me of an Animal Well ACT 3 puzzle, where you had to use your phone to scan a hidden QR code within the game. But this is part of the main game. Saw other reviews on this same subject. If this puzzle was made more accessible, I would easily recommend this game to all puzzle and indie fans. Especially if you liked Baba Is You.