I'm going to start this off by saying that I may not be the best audience for this. I say that because while I definitely like point and click games, I hate a lot of the moon logic that many of their puzzles require. The only time I can find that sort of thing acceptable is if its setting is an extremely foreign, alien world and even then it's a bit iffy.
That said, I really loved the faux 3D aesthetic of the game giving everything depth and a very distinct personality. This is both a good thing and a bad thing though because while it looks very beautiful, the world it builds I think is somewhat inconsistent and because of that the moon logic feels very weird. A perfect example of this is the fishing pole stuff and the first box puzzle. The fishing pole for the first few stuff I could get down with, but after a while it got sort of ridiculous. "Of course it makes total sense that the magnet has to be thrown in the water 3 different times even though no other thing in the damn game is thrown that many times! Obviously cutting the fish makes it turn into a tree and cutting into random jumpscare beast (btw, I was NOT expecting jumpscares! Warning to people that don't like that shit!) makes an apple come out! I mean, haven't you taken basic biology ON THE FUCKING MOON!?"
I'll admit that even though that required some fucking stupid leaps in logic, I was sort of okay with it because there wasn't much I had to do with those. The box puzzles on the other hand can fuck right the hell off. For the first one, I tried to look for text walkthroughs and all I got were people telling me stuff like, "if you cut the symbols in half, they sort of look like numbers!" I normally don't like looking at video walkthroughs because I like seeing what happens when stuff goes together even if I have to find out which stuff goes where. However, with that first puzzle I just gave up and looked at the video walkthrough for the code.
The second box "puzzle" I hate because it's that stupid, "play the other game!" advertisement. I have two problems with this. 1, if this is a sequel or at least and integral part of another game then why the hell isn't that other game on Newgrounds as well? I get that your website is very nice looking and well designed and you want everyone to see how cool it is, but baiting the audience is not how you do that well. That's how you alienate your audience. 2, if the second box puzzle is the other ending that "changes your fate" and what I'd assume to be the canonical ending, then doesn't that completely invalidate the entire reason for the first box puzzle? If it does, then why the fuck even have the damn first puzzle in the first place? I guess it could be so that the ending isn't just "play the first to find out!" but it's still basically that anyway because it's the canonical ending! Also, having that puzzle doesn't drive traffic to your game because people can just look up what the code is anyway (BTW: THE CODE FOR THE SECOND BOX PUZZLE IS 1487).
Overall, while I cannot agree with your marketing practices, I like the game's unique style. Also, even though I totally gave away the second box puzzle, I recommend playing or at least watching the walkthrough for Cube Escape: Seasons. The story is very interesting and the ending with the second box puzzle makes a lot more sense if you know the story from Seasons. I definitely didn't like the random jumpscares because of the contrast of a semi normal setting but if you're the type of person that's into that sort of thing, this is right up your alley. As for me, I may be sticking to the walkthroughs for my continuation of the story.
3/5
