Pharmakon - Tactical Puzzle

The phrase "I really wanted to like this game" is getting way too bloody common in these reviews. Especially mine. I don't generally buy games I don't think I will like. Pharmakon included. It has all sorts of elements that sound really good. -> Tetris piece power ups! More components than power ups really. I remember these from one of the Kingdom Hearts games. It worked really well there. Here... not so much. There are statistical differences between the different elements but otherwise all the pieces are the same other than their shapes. In the first hour of play I have seen zero difference. -> Damage to your drone is represented by unusable squares! Seems like as good idea. Damage slowly makes it harder to use the Tetris components. Sounds good on paper but ends up being more frustrating than challenging. Given it is nearly impossible to avoid taking some damage you are constantly repairing your drone. The damage is specific to elements. So, fire damage must be repaired by fire elements. Ice damage by ice elements etc. You get 0-3 repair parts per element when you destroy a component. With the storage slots (6) and the slots in the drone (6 if perfectly pac…

Ultimately Pharmakon is a repetitive abstract tactical game. It would be nice if you could know the beasts coming up so that you could choose your powers and elements with some thought beforehand, this would enable a strategic component. But there isn't. Each level is pretty similar and I disagree with the "puzzle" tag, which suggests that there is something to figure out. There isn't. Story is text-based and slow. Sorry Pharmakon, I wanted to like you, but you're not my style. 3/10

Pharmakon - Tactical Puzzle, developed and published by Visumeca Games, is a hybrid design that merges turn-based tactics with tightly structured puzzle logic, resulting in an experience that feels less like a traditional strategy game and more like a sequence of carefully constructed problem-solving scenarios. It presents combat not as a test of reflexes or brute force, but as an exercise in efficiency, where every move must be deliberate and every action contributes to a larger plan. The game places players in control of a modular drone navigating hostile environments populated by elemental enemies. While there is a loose sci-fi narrative underpinning the experience, it remains largely in the background, serving as context rather than a driving force. The focus is firmly on gameplay systems, with each encounter functioning as a contained challenge that asks the player to assess the situation, understand enemy behaviors, and determine the most effective sequence of actions. This structure gives the game a puzzle-like quality, where success depends on finding optimal solutions rather than simply surviving. Combat unfolds in a turn-based format where positioning, timing, and resou…

There is definitely an interesting set of ideas here, but sadly this game suffers from the same problem a lot of procedural puzzle games do and that's the whole 'unsolvable puzzle' problem. But more importantly, this game suffers from bad design and programming. Now what do I mean by that? Well when you load up an encounter against enemies you can actually quit to the title screen and then hit continue and then reload it and you will get a different encounter. That alone makes the game a gigantic let down. Also if you pick a power slot and then hit continue too quickly, you won't get the abilities you're supposed to get. So yeah...4 dollars is asking too much for a game that's poorly programmed, has a handful of middle tier bugs and also suffers from a fatal flaw in game design. There simply wasn't enough thought and effort put into this game to merit the 4 dollar asking price.

Cool Tetris companion FTL version .

Esssentially a turn based puzzle game, Pharmakon asks you to maneuver enemy beasts around by attacking them which can cause them to damage each other in collisions or due to the area effect of each beasts death explosion. This is complicated by the rage mechanic which means you can only indirectly damage each beast twice before it attacks you anyway. The complexity is added to by the use of elemental damage, so each piece you can equip for a given shot will do more or less (or no) damage against a given target, and the positioning of the pieces you have within the shape of your drone - minus any spots damaged by beast attacks you haven't yet repaired, using points gained by scrapping pieces you have "spare". You also have a limited supply of calibration points to spend on special attacks, and there is a screen where you can experiment with which attacks are available, and their cost. It certainly is interesting (and innovative as far as I know), and can take a while to optimize your strategy, however while what element you start with and the pieces and enemies you meet are largely randomized (after the beginning), there probably isn't a huge amount of replayability as once you ge…