Unless you had a particularly boring childhood then you’ll likely have the odd memory or two of playing at the beach, trying to make sandcastles before ultimately destroying them like some gargantuan monster. While those carefree days might be over, that’s no reason to quit having some sand-based fun as 2 Bear Studio – the team behind Arcade Saga – has now delivered its latest project onto Steam Early Access, Super Puzzle Galaxy, a puzzle title that’s all about manipulating the gritty yellow stuff.
If the first paragraph got your hopes up that Super Puzzle Galaxy is some awesome sandcastle builder then VRFocus has to say that’s not the case. But that’s not to say the title isn’t good, in fact the puzzler has all the hallmarks of a devilishly addictive videogame that makes use of HTC Vive’s roomscale technology.
All the puzzles revolve around a sandpit type area, which you can pick up and more about at leisure to find the most comfortable spot. The objective, like so many other titles of this ilk – Bounce – is about getting a ball to the goal whilst picking up three tokens on route. There’s no time limit – although a global leader board does record it – with the main challenge being to manipulate the level to make a decent route.
This is all done with one controller, having a square brush-like tool that can raise and lower the sand at will. For fine tuning gulleys and ramps the tool size can be altered by spinning your thumb around the controllers’ touchpad. While this does make for easy building, getting it just right takes a good eye and a fine touch for those more difficult levels.
Super Puzzle Galaxy might be a single-player experience yet it’s one of those VR titles that’ll thrive through community content creation – much like Fantastic Contraption. There’s a campaign with several levels to get you started and show you the sort of levels that can be created. The actual creation mode looks to feature the exact same tools 2 Bear Studio used to make the campaign levels so there’s plenty to work with to make your level as difficult as possible.
Even at this early stage there’s a reasonable amount of content on offer, all of which looks highly polished and very well put together. Naturally as development continues more features including additional levels and creative options will be added to beef up what’s already a solid VR experience. Super Puzzle Galaxy has all the hallmarks of a VR fan favourite puzzle title, and VRFocus will certainly be interested in seeing hoe development continues.