izigame.me

Chill, relatively easy but still challenging puzzle game. Amazing to play now and then when relaxing/watching something else on your second monitor. Good substitute for autobattlers/puzzlegames with quality written all over it. More positives than negatives, could use more tweaking and changes to some features.
Pros:
- Refreshing and unique puzzle elements
- Amazing aesthetics and art style
- Cool character designs and animations
- Satisfying gameplay (long combos and figuring out better chains)
- Adds new variables and mechanics to the core gameplay the further you get, making it harder and interesting
- Easy and hard puzzles
- Massive amounts of gameplay time (atm 19h and not even 50% done with the game)
- Challenges
- Dailies
- A lot of different consumables, gear and items to make your own gameplay style different
50/50 pro/con
- Mobile UI elements (I personally like it because it's simplistic and snappy)
- A lot of animations (can be frustrating for players like me who don't care about them anymore)
- RNG placement of chests and slob kings (optional missions in puzzles) can sometimes be really weird, making it extremely easy or nearly impossible to get. This adds rng variable to the puzzles which is nice, but sometimes makes you replay the puzzle for easier spawns.
- CalArts artstyle (I'm neutral about it but it's super basic and saturated at this point, animations and presentation makes it special)
- Some costumes are locked behind a weekly quest gate. If you don't meet the requirements (eg. on launch you need 50 spike shield kills, and with my 19 hours of gameplay time I still haven't gotten it), I have no idea if you'll ever be able to get it again.
Cons:
- Clearly developed for mobile first as a f2p+p2w game, then changed to p2p model. This makes some mechanics and features "weird" for a pay to play game.
- Resource dependant with consumables, special items and hp. If you suck at the game, you might need to grind the older levels for resources which ofc sucks butt because it's a husk feature from the p2w mobile game dev version. (No idea how bad it is because so far I haven't had to replay any puzzles for resources)
- No fast mode, can get tedious to wait for the animations to finish
- Some puzzles are so hard that you need special items to complete them. On paper this is not a bad feature, but because the items need resources to use them and if you get stuck/suck at the puzzle, you need to grind the resources back which ofc is horrible and tedious. Once again, mobile game version's husk feature.
Tips:
- Use the pickaxe to spawn more items on the map, which are neutral colored pickups. Makes combos easier and gives more room to move. Pickaxe refills after every puzzle aka you don't need resources to use it.
- When you are in a position where you have to either take damage or use an item to get out of the situation, think about which is less expensive for your; taking 1 hit which costs 5 gems to heal OR getting out of the situation with an item which costs eg. 10 gems + other resources to refill/repair. Sometimes taking 1 hit is much better decision.
- In the early game you can pick special resources from challenges to make new items/gear, but later on I highly recommend always picking up gems because you need them for hp and item refills/repair. You'll get plenty resources from other things in the game.
- If the puzzle map is special with map hazards or multiple tough hp enemies, don't be afraid to quit the puzzle when you've checked it out at the start, change to appropriate items and trying again. This doesn't cost you anything as long as you've not lost any hp and/or used items which require resources.
- Remember to use monster goo at Helgä's shop regularly to craft super items. Once the amount of goo hits the 6000 limit, you can't gather more until you've free'd up some space.
Thanks for reading.
Edit: Added more bullets points