This game would be an amazing puzzle game if only it had a snap for both cuts and placing. If this feature were implemented, it would be a 4+ rating, hands down.
Reviews for "Renga Samurai"
I too like the idea. The game looks really nice, the music is great and the atmosphere is top notch.
I finished the game so I can tell you there are 24 levels in all.
And now the beef.
1) On many levels I didn't have to use all the cuts and kind of cheated not having to fill up all the areas, just fit the sliced up block where I could. To me that kind of defeats the purpose. This goes hand in hand with my next beef:
2) Accuracy!!!!
2A) The shape area on the right is sometimes too big which allows for solving the puzzle in a different way than intended (I understand some room is needed because the cuts are not perfect) and
2B) it's superannoying when everything is inside the lines but it still won't complete. This means that the borders are very inaccurate. This could also be improved immensly by highlighting what exactly is "outside" the border since I couldn't tell a few times and just started over.
3) The pieces stick to each other in a very annoying way. Sometimes you can get them close to each other, sometimes you can't close the gap and sometimes you can't move them up or down between two pieces and you have to move the other pieces first.
4) Though I like the analogue feeling of the cuts as it goes hand in han with being a swordmaster - it has nothing to do with intelligence when you know what cuts you need to make, but have to restart countless times because of the inaccuracy of the cuts. Even when you line it up straight down the middle the resulting pieces are different sizes. This to me is just tedious and annoying.
Here is what you could do if you make a sequel - because despite of above comments - I enjoyed the game and would like a more puzzling sequel.
Make the block slices line up in an absolute grid of say 10x10 so the cuts are always perfect and the solution as well. It can still look analogue, but you either solve it correctly or you don't and there will never be an issue of "cheating" or being outside the shape lines as everything should lock into place like tetris blocks. For more difficult levels you can make the grid bigger so you get 15x15 block to chop up and so on. This would solve all the above mentioned issues.
I like the idea, but you can use the space as a template to approximate cuts. Basically, you give us the solution. Not everyone can see that, but to those who do this game is very monotonous. It's almost like using an algorithm. Align, cut, solve, align, cut, solve, over and over. The music helps though.
josh-tamugaia responds:
I know about using the space as template to approximate cuts. But have you tried that way on the higher levels??? Will the later levels also become monotonous and less difficult that way? Hehehehe...
In fact, the first prototype of this game won't let you drag the brick to the right shape, so you could not use the method you said. But later on I decided to let the players do it cause if not the difficulty would increase more than 5-fold and there would be lots of trial and error.
Thanks for the review but still if you think you can just get through this game using align, cut, solve, I invite you to finish it without any help and obtain all medals.
A decent enough game, but kind of dull. I'd suggest a non-linear level progression, so that one could put off particularly annoying or boring levels. Or just have everything open from the beginning
I think it says something that the thing I found most interesting here was stumbling across a remix of Suika's theme
This was a fun, relaxing game. The music was nice and It wasn't too fast paced. I hope to see more of these kinds of games in the future, keep up the good work. :)