a formerly paid puzzler that went free a couple of years after its 2016 release. the clue's in the name, mouse-based rotating to recreate patterns shown on top, ideally in the set number of moves. the button has to be held, can't click, move the mouse, then click again. not ideal.
there are 4 puzzle types (see below), each with multiple levels. unfortunately, only the first two for the first type are unlocked at the beginning, everything else needs stars. 25 total opens the first level everywhere and it can be had in a matter of minutes, and by the time you perfect the two initial ones with very little effort, almost half the game will be unlocked. could be worse.
each level contains a certain number of puzzles for the same pattern, all to be done in one move, for instance. [b]there are about 1500(!) puzzles total[/b], probably every iteration, and while there's a certain flow to the whole thing, less would definitely have been more. [b]asking to do 100 of almost everything is way too much.[/b] then random mode unlocks after perfecting each pack, offering even more configurations. on smaller levels there's not much variety to begin with and it's not possible to re-do the default sequences anymore. should've kept both options even if being able to tell original and random setups apart is unlikely. as is wanting more of that particular pattern after 100 variations.
[b]quitting saves level progress but not mid-puzzle progress[/b], which is a problem on bigger levels. there's [b]unlimited undo, puzzle skip and one of the worst hint systems I've ever seen[/b]. I wish right click worked as undo too, not just clicking a button on the side, and the hint button was always present instead of appearing seemingly randomly, giving iffy advice, then disappearing again a few moves before the par. [b]there's a steam guide on how to summon and abuse it, underlining how badly it's implemented.[/b]
[b]no individual puzzle reset is a major reason for the thumbs down.[/b] constantly undoing few-move levels is fine, but on anything more it becomes extremely tedious when a single click should also be an option. also, [b]as soon as a puzzle is solved, whether on par or above, the next one comes up[/b], so it's easy to accidentally register an imperfect solution. there's an achievement for 10,000 (TEN ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ THOUSAND) undos, which I guess can happen eventually because there's no other option. provided you stick with it under such conditions.
puzzle skip cycles through imperfect ones but only in one direction and it's a pain when there are 100 and several have to be revisited, or you'd just like to retry the last one before moving on. [b]no on-screen level numbers make it even worse.[/b] there's a progress bar, shows perfect, almost perfect and worse with different colors, mouseover reveals all these and a total with actual numbers, but [b]it's impossible to tell where you are within a level[/b]. wouldn't be cool with 10 puzzles, ♥♥♥♥ off territory with 100. leaving and coming back lands on the first unsolved puzzle but the same progress bar on level select and the stats screen has no mouseover functionality.
with all this in place (or not in place), I was worried that if I were going for perfects, the game would force me to replay entire sets just because I had a few less than optimal ones. some subpar solitaires pull this, but here in such cases [b]you only have to retry the non-perfect puzzles after finishing the set[/b]. this is nice at least.
the first puzzle type is called [u]simple[/u] and it is, but it ranges from 1 move and 4 things to flip to 10 moves and 11 things to flip, upping complexity and difficulty considerably. I have trouble thinking ahead and visualizing such puzzles, so I noped out of later stages, only did one of each. [u]sided[/u] mode has asymmetric things to flip, adding orientation as another layer. gave it up almost immediately. [u]wired[/u] puzzles have you untangle stuff until no wires cross each other. [u]image[/u] is jigsaw-like, reassemble pictures that seemingly went through a shredder. orientation is important once again but there are only 4 images with hundreds of variations.
on the one hand I miss the unity launcher, could pick resolution and windowed mode before the game even started, but it also made devs lazy (or even lazier), as they didn't feel the need to include these in-game. gotta love having to quit just to switch to a window that doesn't match the screen resolution. so yeah, this still has the launcher and sure enough, no windowed mode toggle or resolutions inside (alt+enter works but it's useless), just separate volumes and a few languages. not in a pull-down menu, click through one by one, changing instantly. plus in-game representation of achievements, a tutorial and the stats screen mentioned above.
it started its life at $6 back in 2016, that would've probably been an 'on sale only' thing even if it worked properly, but I only found it the other day while searching for something else, so it's a moot point. I don't recommend stuff just because they're free, a game is either good enough or it isn't, price notwithstanding, and [b]while this puzzle type isn't for me, it came relatively close to an easy recommendation[/b]. there was some post-release support based on forum posts, maybe the issues above would've been addressed as well but nobody brought them up at the time.
