Spaera

Griefing as a Puzzle game. If you're into that, this is recommended. I have fun playing this game locally, but without that personal touch, it's just going to be frustrating, especially as the game demands your attention being on everything, including your opponents piece, their next piece, combos their setting up, their meter, and have an understanding of how it all connects together. For something like this, there might be a bit too much going on for a genre that generally is recommended for it's simplicity. Not bad, but not recommended over Poyo Poyo Tetris.

I was searching for a game reminiscent of "Tetris Battle Gaiden" and Spaera easily satiated my hunger for classic puzzle battles. While the blocks are a little different from the ones used in Tetris, the overall game feeling is the same for me. In addition you get a few unique characters (just imagine what could be possible, when adding more characters from other Steam games), lovely animation of their offense/defense moves as well as a cool soundtrack. It is early access, so the battles against the NPCs are rather basic (nevertheless for me a fun way to pass time every now and then). But playing against others is the real challenge. Unfortunately the community is not big enough that you can simply start an online-battle and be sure to find an opponent. Most of the time, I'm in the game for myself. But the developers have a discord channel, where you can find other players. I think there is a lot of potential for this game, when thinking about difficulties, different game modes, maybe including a chat, representing the personalities of the characters, hosting events to bring the community together and stuff like that. The creators probably have even more things in mind, so for now I'm happy with how the game is and haven't really experienced any troubles.

https://youtu.be/hC0U8jlRkxM Pit based match cleared puzzle games rely on clear communication to player on chain reactions, the way gravity is implemented does not provide that needed information.

The gameplay loop is very satisfying, especially the aspect of using spells at opportune moments to absolutely destroy the opponent. There's just a lot of rough edges like style inconsistencies in the menus and the sounds in the game being absolutely terrible (I assume they're still placeholder sounds). Has potential, but I have no idea if it'll ever be finished.

Its Spaereaing time

Not Recommended. Yes, it's a game that hasn't been updated in a long time and it shows. The game play loop is there and there's a neat aesthetic that is built into the game, but there are fundamental flaws as to what is happening. The sound design is not always clear what is going on, the visual animations are really neat but are not clear in the moment as to what they are doing. These are really important for any game that is trying to be a versus game while having to focus hard on your own area. The game has the framework that could be a good game, but it is unfortunate that it will not see its potential.