The structure of this game as one giant tutorial continuously introducing new mechanics reminds me of the original Portal. That is the CLOSEST to a good thing I have to say about this game.
Negative things? Let's count.
1) It utterly fails to have the player discover game mechanics through environmental clues and instead must outright state them in text blocks. Missing the entire reason the game it reminds me of is so good.
2) The physical mechanics in game are so terrible that several puzzles can be all but invalidated by pushing blocks from corners and alternating to effectively slide the block diagonally, making otherwise extensive multi-step solutions into at worst 2 step processes.
3) The guard detection system is so broken and terrible that in several levels where the intended solution involves getting spotted I had to carefully avoid getting spotted by the WRONG guard or at the wrong spot so they wouldn't get stuck running into a wall or on the wrong floor of a level and soft lock the whole game.
4) Numerous levels were excessively long corridors on levels that served only to demonstrate the excessively slow movement of the MC after being caught by a guard.
5) Multiple levels intend for the MC to be caught and consume "health" in guard interactions. They still start the MC at 1hp so if you ever forget to use the provided healing item at the start of the level you lose immediately. Just start the MC at full health(3hp).
6) Several levels are simply platform jumps. That doesn't even qualify as a puzzle in my eyes.
7+8) The big one. These mechanics are so intrinsically tied and so infuriatingly implemented that I can't really separate them for the list, but they MORE than deserve to be 2 negatives. The MC's ability to jump AND sprint on EVERY level is a resource. The jumps are never more than you strictly need to finish the puzzle the intended way, and the sprint is a pitifully small amount. If you miss even a single jump, that's a full reset. Run out of sprint and you are stuck moving painfully slow around unnecessarily long hallways, and that's WITHOUT a guard deciding to tie your legs up. Every platformer I have ever known has allowed unlimited use of the jump, and at worst a recharging sprint. This is markedly worse on BOTH. Many levels require a sprint jump to clear a certain gap, so if you use your sprint to simply move through the level faster and avoid boring walking time you can end up stuck standing on a ledge at the end of an otherwise solved puzzle, with no sprint. That's a full level reset. Do it ALL again.
9) more of a bizarre and incongruous thing, there seems to be no rhyme or reason to what each guard will do to the MC beyond what that particular level NEEDS that guard to do. Early levels before the tying mechanic has been introduced? Guess I'll just torture you, and not bother you with that later mechanic. Worse still, later levels that do intend for you to end up tied only seem to have that properly coded on the specific guards intended to tie you, and the rest simply glitch out and run into you forever, softlocking you and not even triggering the game over screen.
10) the lack of a skip function for guard animations is painful. This is the 15th time I've seen this guard tie the MC up in the same way because the game keep soft locking due to god awful guard detection design. That 10 seconds animation is beyond frustrating.
TL
R playing this game was a wasted 90 minutes of my life. Save yourself the bother, and don't play it. Roughly 3/4 of that time was spent fighting the poor game design, not even solving the puzzles, and NONE of it was spent on the naughty bits, because those don't exist.
Negative things? Let's count.
1) It utterly fails to have the player discover game mechanics through environmental clues and instead must outright state them in text blocks. Missing the entire reason the game it reminds me of is so good.
2) The physical mechanics in game are so terrible that several puzzles can be all but invalidated by pushing blocks from corners and alternating to effectively slide the block diagonally, making otherwise extensive multi-step solutions into at worst 2 step processes.
3) The guard detection system is so broken and terrible that in several levels where the intended solution involves getting spotted I had to carefully avoid getting spotted by the WRONG guard or at the wrong spot so they wouldn't get stuck running into a wall or on the wrong floor of a level and soft lock the whole game.
4) Numerous levels were excessively long corridors on levels that served only to demonstrate the excessively slow movement of the MC after being caught by a guard.
5) Multiple levels intend for the MC to be caught and consume "health" in guard interactions. They still start the MC at 1hp so if you ever forget to use the provided healing item at the start of the level you lose immediately. Just start the MC at full health(3hp).
6) Several levels are simply platform jumps. That doesn't even qualify as a puzzle in my eyes.
7+8) The big one. These mechanics are so intrinsically tied and so infuriatingly implemented that I can't really separate them for the list, but they MORE than deserve to be 2 negatives. The MC's ability to jump AND sprint on EVERY level is a resource. The jumps are never more than you strictly need to finish the puzzle the intended way, and the sprint is a pitifully small amount. If you miss even a single jump, that's a full reset. Run out of sprint and you are stuck moving painfully slow around unnecessarily long hallways, and that's WITHOUT a guard deciding to tie your legs up. Every platformer I have ever known has allowed unlimited use of the jump, and at worst a recharging sprint. This is markedly worse on BOTH. Many levels require a sprint jump to clear a certain gap, so if you use your sprint to simply move through the level faster and avoid boring walking time you can end up stuck standing on a ledge at the end of an otherwise solved puzzle, with no sprint. That's a full level reset. Do it ALL again.
9) more of a bizarre and incongruous thing, there seems to be no rhyme or reason to what each guard will do to the MC beyond what that particular level NEEDS that guard to do. Early levels before the tying mechanic has been introduced? Guess I'll just torture you, and not bother you with that later mechanic. Worse still, later levels that do intend for you to end up tied only seem to have that properly coded on the specific guards intended to tie you, and the rest simply glitch out and run into you forever, softlocking you and not even triggering the game over screen.
10) the lack of a skip function for guard animations is painful. This is the 15th time I've seen this guard tie the MC up in the same way because the game keep soft locking due to god awful guard detection design. That 10 seconds animation is beyond frustrating.
TL
R playing this game was a wasted 90 minutes of my life. Save yourself the bother, and don't play it. Roughly 3/4 of that time was spent fighting the poor game design, not even solving the puzzles, and NONE of it was spent on the naughty bits, because those don't exist.