Toroban

Toroban is a competent puzzle game with solid mechanics, clear graphical design, and a thorough exploration of the interactions between the various game pieces. It looks and sounds good. It takes a very deliberate step away from the trend of discovery of mechanics through play by stating in simple terms the exact mechanics that you will encounter in the following puzzles and how they work. This sets it apart from games centered around discovery through play, like Monster's Expedition or Stephen's Sausage Roll. It's fresh and I don't mind it. If you enjoy the process of discovery, you can always ignore the signs. Having the mechanics spelled out for you doesn't stop the game from being hard, however. It starts relatively gentle and then ramps up the difficulty considerably. I wouldn't say that the game gets so hard that it stops being fun. The fun stops for an entirely different reason... Despite the points I've listed in its favor, I can't in good conscience recommend it for a single reason: the game designer [b]knowingly, repeatedly, and explicitly does not respect your time[/b]. One of the biggest criticisms of sokoban-like games are situations in which the problem is relatively…

[h1]The short version[/h1] [b]Toroban[/b] is a sokoban style puzzle game where the levels loop, The game [b]starts out strong[/b], exploring its mechanics feels rewarding for the first leg of the game. [b]the final[/b] area though has multiple puzzles that exist only to [b]waste your time[/b]. With the game's [b]endgame not implemented yet[/b] the store page lacking [i]Early Access[/i] tag on the store page makes me not recommend the game yet. [h1]A comprehensive review[/h1] Toroban has a lot of areas, this section each area will be discussed one by one. To avoid confusion this review will use the games terminology, the following are needed to understand this review: [list] [*]Toros: These are the critters you control during the game. [*][i]Italics[/i] are used to notify the names of subsections. [/list] [h3]Spoilers ahead[/h3] [h2]Grass[/h2] The opening of the game, these puzzles are very basic intentionally, it teaches you the very basics followed by the mechanic named after the section [i]Gate Holding[/i] which is a mechanic used for the rest of the game. The puzzles after that especially in [i]Too Many Blocks[/i] are a exercise in patience being more about play length…

I checked these guys out at PAX East, this is a pretty brutal sokoban game with a lot of really inventive twists. It's somewhat easy to dismiss this as a Patrick's Parabox ripoff but it is genuinely so much more than that. The recursive puzzles and meta-puzzle mechanics are total brainbusters for me, but in a good way - every puzzle so far has been fair, unlike Baba is You. Definitely recommend this one if you want a meaty puzzle game.

This game rules. Extremely fun puzzles.

A very great game that combines Sokoban, geometry and tactics. All the power of Rust-coded engine Bevy

I think this game is surprisingly deep. On the one hand, it's just a bunch of little puzzles and nice gentle music - at first I expected it to get monotonous, fast. But they mix things up very nicely by throwing new things at you - there is more variety than i expected. But what I find cool is there's kind of a level unlocking meta puzzle that's overlays everything. It pulled me. So I think it's a cool game. Highly recommended.