dungeons of dreadrock
{B}
what a charming little puzzler. it balances a very deliberately small scope of design with an almost disproportionate amount of aesthetic flair which goes beyond what i can reasonably describe as "polish". it's short and fairly simple as far as puzzle games go, and its story is similarly basic, but the overall presentation value brings such intense "labor of love" energy that i can't help but feel like i enjoyed my time with it.
the spritework is downright gorgeous, evoking the colorful, cartoonish style reminiscent of GBA games (in particular, i'd wager that zelda: minish cap was a strong inspiration for the artist). and the story, even if tropey, gets bonus points for letting the sister save the brother, instead of the other way around.
as for the puzzles themselves, i found that almost all of the rooms hit the sweet spot (for a casual puzzle enjoyer) of getting you to think just hard enough to not feel bored without actually being very challenging. i wish i had any more-specific points of praise, because i think this game does do most of the things it sets out to do pretty well, but i guess it mostly went by a little too fast for much of it to stick with me like that.
i had a really hard time deciding how to rank this one, honestly... i'd say it probably sits right about on the border between {B} and {A}. it certainly would've been in {A} if not for the sporadic moments of frustration i felt with the puzzle design's occasionally rough edges. like how several rooms require you to pull a loose stone from one of the wall tiles; in a lot of cases, that wall tile is specifically marked by something that looks slightly out of place, but in a few rooms the important tile is visually identical to the other nearby walls, forcing a bit of trial and error in the solving process until you stumble across this.
another notable example of such frustrations is how the game handles backtracking. it normally prevents you from backtracking at all, with a generic dialogue reminding you to seek the downward stairs if you ever try to go back up. however, a decent handful of rooms do expect you to go up one floor as part of solving the lower floor's puzzle. this is usually hinted somehow, but once or twice i only found out by deciding to check "just in case", after feeling at a loss for ideas. the inconsistency there is the frustrating part.
overall, i think this game is pretty good, something i'd say any fan of puzzle games is likely to enjoy, especially when it goes on sale for less than one dollar about once a month on average. if it was longer, or its story had been a bit less boilerplate, it might've easily outweighed the minor frustrations i encountered during our playthru. at the very least, i'm looking forward to playing the sequel whenever we get around to it, hopeful that it's improved on the formula while finding more of a sense of individuality. we'll see soon enough!