[b]piozila[/b] is a $2 mobile game that was initially sold in a really sorry state on pc for $8. happens all the time, unfortunately, but it's been $3 outside a sale since early 2022 and also received a bunch of post-release patches, making it look and work a lot better for a more reasonable price. it's still far from perfect though.
you're in charge of leon the chameleon, emerging from a toilet at the beginning. the goal on all [b]25 levels[/b] is to help him reach the exit by pushing things (and leon) around. it's essentially a reverse-[url=https://store.steampowered.com/app/950140/] hiding spot[/url]. the [b]move limit is optional[/b] (and only appears after the first move, not ideal), you get a trophy if it's not exceeded.
so yes, [b]it's another sokoban, big surprise[/b]. at least there's no cat in this one. what's there is [b]durability on everything[/b], which is quite novel. so you can't just push things around ad infinitum, even leon has a bar above his head, and [b]when the bar is exhausted, things turn into immovable cones[/b]. leon can be fed to recharge his bar, but moving food too much makes it disappear.
as we know, the only thing worse than cats is humans, and they raise their ugly heads here eventually too. they move around in a turn-based fashion and destroy stuff in one hit. what's more, they kill leon in the same turn as they step on an adjacent tile, very annoying. other hazards include spike traps (only affecting leon) and fire (can be fed or extinguished), plus there are keys and buttons, the usual stuff.
[b]controls are mouse-based.[/b] left click to select stuff, then click the appearing arrows to move them. luckily, a [b]'select auto' toggle got patched in[/b], otherwise it'd be a tedious select-move-reselect-move-reselect-move situation. it's still not fast enough and if you click again too soon, the item gets unselected instead of moved. right click or left anywhere that's not an item also does that.
can't move the camera, but mouse wheel zooms, x/v (why?) rotates slowly (I expected 45-degree steps but not against anything smoother), which can be done with the mouse on the edge of the screen as well, but if you turn that on, x/v stops working for no acceptable reason. 'r' is restart, took them 8 ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ months to implement and it's not even instant, just slowly reloads the level and resets the camera too ('reload', on the other hand, is full progress reset, very misleading).
[b]no undo[/b], which I somehow took for granted and now it's a dealbreaker, especially with [b]dying leading to a level reset[/b] and thanks to the perspective and how busy levels are, [b]misclicks can easily happen[/b]. I wouldn't mind a wall toggle either, to get rid of all of them. no matter how you rotate the level, some will always be in the way.
the graphics are nice (wasn't the case on release), you can customize leon and even click the sun to advance time and change time of day, though it's only cosmetic. the music is pretty good if very repetitive, but [b]there are annoying text display sounds[/b] (humans apparently communicate with morse code), and while display is fast enough, instant would be better. punctuation is also often missing and writing is pretty bad (in english anyway, there are other options), but can be turned off with the 'story mode' toggle. and it's nice that only tutorial messages repeat after a level reset, not the fluff (which still gets shown next time you launch the game and the last level loads, so it's not perfect).
despite some quality of life, [b]basic settings are lacking[/b]. no main menu, options come up on the side (esc doesn't bring them up, have to click). no volume sliders, only toggles for music and sound, no separate one for text display, no resolution options or windowed mode (alt+enter only makes a non-resizable window, gotta edit the registry to change anything). there's level select in the menu (also took them months to add), that's the only place to check level numbers after they pop up at the start of each stage. the 'dream' toggle makes another leon appear and you can move him with wasd/arrows outside the actual puzzle area. levels are small and there's nothing to explore or do, so it's completely pointless.
I appreciate the work they put in after release, but all those things and more should've been there from the start and there's still basic stuff missing. hiking up the price for an identical pc version is also not something to applaud, even if it's common mobile dev ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥. if they ever patch in undo that also works from a fail state, make level reset instant and add more basic functionality, I'll flip the review to a recommendation. give it a miss until then.
