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jp's Prism: Light the Way (DS)

[January 29, 2022 11:10:39 PM]

This is a really tight puzzle game that's not super polished in terms of presentation - but the puzzle designs and the context are quite fun. There's a bunch of different modes you can play (against a timer, and so on), but the main one is where I spent all of my time and I'm a huge fan of the fact that there's no timer, no tracking of how many moves you made and so on. Just solve the puzzle. It makes the whole thing so much more pleasant to play - like you're tinkering with a toy and just exploring and experimenting.

I skipped the tutorial (didn't notice there was one until I went back into the menus) and I was surprised by how intuitive everything was which, for me at least, is a huge thing. I enjoyed discovering how to play the game, the basic "rules" (like realizing that you could move certain pieces I thought were fixed!), and the beauty (in terms of lights and colors) of the final solutions.

I played the first 30 levels, which looked like about 20% of the entire game...and the difficulty definitely ramps up, but so far at least not in a way that seemed arbitrary - like introducing some new restriction (like a timer, things you need to react to with reflexes, etc.).

The setup is quite simple. Each level has a certain number of white light sources (at least one) and there are a certain number of targets for light. To solve a puzzle all the targets need to get lit. Light moves straight and there are a few "pieces" in the level you can use to affect light: mirrors (to reflect light 90 degrees), "splitters" (to split the light into two streams, usually they're "t-junctions", but the light can only enter from one direction, and block prisms - light enters on the white side and leaves the other 3 sides in 3 different colors - some of the light receptors are color-coded). The puzzles involve sliding stuff around the levels until everything is lit like it should be. Really simple, and when you have 3-light sources and, say, 6 receptors in each of 3 colors it all looks really, really pretty.

I'd be surprised if this game didn't make it's way to the app store eventually.

Oh! The hint system is also really clever - it basically, if you use it all the way, tells you where you should place each level piece - it highlights it and then shows you (with a green circle) where it needs to go). You can keep on tapping it until you solve the puzzle. It's neat because sometimes you just need that little push - place this here and then figure the rest out. Very simple, and very clever!