Slider Preview: Reconnecting in More Way Than One
Slider is a game about reconnecting. You are reconnecting the world, connecting people, and connecting the dots to what is happening in randomerz's fun and adventurous puzzle title. Slider is a bit-style puzzle title with a new methodology about every puzzle you tackle and the erratic cast of characters you encounter. Luckily, you discover the artifact that allows you to restore the tiles that are representative of your world to their rightful place and help in the world's overall completion.
Bit-Sized Fun
Slider's bit-style graphical choice makes some words hard to read, but beyond that, it's a nostalgic retro-inspired style that I dug.
I would be remiss, not to mention the cats. When you boot up the game, you name one of the many cats instead of your character, which already has a name. While the cats play a crucial part in the game, my time didn't represent that, but I assume that changes as you progress. The devs even write you a note and give you an emotional support cat that sits on your head.
On top of that, you have the eccentric characters you come across. As you encounter these characters, they task you to complete something for them by moving the world tiles. For instance, one character wanted me to reconnect her tile with the tile of her lover as they were separated. Thanks to the artifact, I eventually figured out how to do that. I was then rewarded with another tile.
Other rewards range from fish, coffee, and other random everyday items that take the Zelda-inspired approach of acquiring an item to give to a different character just for that character to provide me with a different thing, and so on.
Bring on the Momentum
In terms of the puzzles involving the tiles directly, you learn that when each tile moves, the momentum that that tile movement creates comes into play. This added another layer to the puzzle mechanics. You have the tile puzzle itself, the items each character requests, and then the momentum to boot. During one instance, I moved a tile to make a character fall off a rock and give up his item.
Additionally, there are areas outside the tiles that remain there. These parts of land act as a grid, so they don't move at all and must be used strategically to reach specific locations and progress.
Final Thoughts
Overall, the conclusion of the demo is what wowed me. Not only is Slider a rewarding and familiar puzzle title that feels fresh to play with sound mechanics and puzzles, but it's the reveal that did me in. Once I gained all eight tiles and rearranged them properly after much trial and error, the map zooms out to reveal that your now nine tiles make up one tile on an even bigger map. Usually, I'd feel overwhelmed with something like this, but I couldn't help but want to jump right back into randomerz quality puzzler.
Written by Austin Ernst