Virtual reality is the perfect natural habitat for puzzle games. All those puzzles that ask the player to observe, study the scenery and manipulate objects, in the VR version have an unequivocal advantage. Even the smallest and simplest ideas take on a different flavor, like the very cute and clever PathCraft. In fact, it is not the first time we have encountered this game: the developer's first work. Daniel Yu, we had tested it during Gamescom 2022 at the Vertigo Games stand and we really liked the prototype at the time.
Does this feeling persist even after the test conducted close to the game's release? We tell you about our experience in PathCraft Review, tested in goal mission 2.
Game mechanics
If you think PathCraft is a simple puzzle game just because of its colorful and naive aesthetic, you're making a big mistake. In fact, we are talking about a particularly stimulating product, despite the very simple game mechanics. The scenarios are made up of a series of blocks, many toy cubes that create a path along which our character can walk. Iobiettivo It consists of leading our little man towards one or more batteries spread across the stage. The character, who has the features of a boy or girl, dressed in pajamas and cardboard armor, is in continuous motion and moves in a straight line, climbing a cube placed in his path but changing direction if he encounters an insurmountable obstacle. The player is then asked to manipulate the level by moving one or more blocks to direct the little man towards the battery.
It's simple mechanics It gives life to dozens and dozens of different scenarios, where obviously new variables are introduced such as unsafe blocks, bullets, etc. The player, in addition to grabbing and placing the blocks, can manipulate the stage by moving it within the level in the X and Y axes, but without being able to rotate the stage, an aspect of which we will talk later in this review.
From the point of view artisticAs mentioned, PathCraft looks delicious. The avatars are really cute and during the adventure it is possible to buy them by spending coins to unlock new costumes for our child, such as a dragon or a unicorn. Coins are purchased by solving scenarios as best as possible. In fact, each level can be completed with a minimum number of moves: the fewer moves we use, the higher the score obtained and, consequently, the number of coins won, from a minimum of zero to a maximum of three for the perfect solution. . This obviously adds a second layer of difficulty to puzzles where, in addition to a simple resolution, perfectionists and completionists will surely want to close the scenarios in the best possible way. A wish that we also had, but that quickly ended after the first 25 levels, since the difficulty curve of the game goes up quite quickly... and wanting to do everything perfect you end up wanting to go to the next level. . After introducing the basic mechanics with a handful of very simple levels, the game offers increasingly complex puzzles, balancing the difficulty slightly when a new mechanic is introduced.
Technical aspect and critical issues.
From the point of view technical The experience is solid, but not perfect. The graphics are not very clean and the hand gestures, visible on the screen during the act of picking up and placing blocks on the stage, are a bit crude. As you may have understood, PathCraft is a title truly reduced to the minimum, perhaps in some aspects even too much. In a type of game like this you obviously don't feel the lack of a story or a narrative line, but there are some gaps that could have been filled. He game menu It is actually very scarce and barely consists of five elements, in order: the choice of sitting/standing mode, the language, two options dedicated to audio and one to special effects.
Title It is not located in Spanish and basically this has never been a point against a game, but it is equally true that the material to be translated is so limited that the editor could have easily compensated, after all we are only talking about modifying the menu items and the Few tutorials that appear during the experience.
The most perplexing aspect of PathCraft is the option to not allow the player to rotate the stage while solving a puzzle. By pressing the two rear triggers of the Meta Quest 2 controllers, it is possible to grab the environment and move it in space, so you can look at it from above, from below, on its right and left sides, but you will never be able to rotate it. This is because the game was designed putting the stage at the center of the action, asking the player to move like a satellite. A choice that we personally do not appreciate, but that we do not feel like penalizing at all, despite a fairly obvious short circuit. The player's rotation through the environment is conceptually contrasted with the arbitrary choice to play PathCraft. standing or sitting: If you play it standing up it is easy to move around the stage, but playing it sitting down is practically impossible. So why not add rotation in sitting mode?
There are VR puzzle games that make environmental exploration the strong point of the experience: for example, the very sweet The Curious Tale of the Stolen Pets asks us to explore many small worlds and find the animals hidden in them. Or Down to the Rabbit Hole, inspired by Alice in Wonderland, where we stop inside an increasingly deeper diorama, moving the settings around us in a downward spiral. And these games work precisely because of the possibility of rotate the stage. Even without this option, the game is still a lot of fun, but there were several times when we thought we'd done it all, only to realize that actually behind a blind corner was one last battery to collect. Not to mention that some angles and perspectives are not optimal for solving the puzzles, because in some cases, in addition to developing the right strategy, a certain timing is required to divert the little man's path in time.
To compensate for this aspect, which as we have said we do not consider a problem or error but simply a design choice, there is the whole part ofeditor, a huge toy box where the user is free to create their own levels and puzzles by uploading them online and making them available to the community. Something that is certainly not new, on the contrary, but that adds more depth to the experience, in addition to providing a reason to stay and play even after completing the almost 100 levels that comprise it.
Conclusions
digital delivery Official Web site Holygamerz.com 7.5 audience ND your votePathCraft is a beautiful, simple virtual reality puzzle game, a fitting but not perfect debut. For a product present in the Meta Store, which must compete with many other titles of this type present in the online store, PathCraft seems a little poor in all those auxiliary aspects of the gaming experience. Despite the impossibility of rotating the scenarios, the title convinces thanks to the brilliant puzzles that keep the player glued to the viewer, encouraged to stay thanks to scores and collectibles. The sandbox level editor is also a particularly appreciated addition that we hope will make the players' experience and life of PathCraft more lasting.
PRO
- bright puzzles
- Beautiful artistic style
- Sandbox editor
AGAINST
- Scenarios cannot be fully manipulated
- Localizing the game would have required little effort
