Seek Etyliv

What a wonderful little puzzle game disguised as a dungeon crawler this is. Who would have thought you could get so much gameplay and puzzly goodness out of a 3x3 grid. Basically, the game is made up of a series of 3x3 rooms, with a very few different types of monsters, chests, items and pits to make up the puzzle aspect. The first part of the game is a sequential set of levels that you have to complete in order. After that, you get into the dungeon aspect of the game, which isn't really a dungeon crawler except for the room by room navigation. In this portion of the game, you have to beat levels without dying at all, and find the stairs to the next dungeon level. After you complete two dungeon levels, you win! Easy peasy! Not! Some of the levels are very devious. I got my first complete victory at four hours. Much of that time was banging my head against the wall trying to figure out the boards. The poem aspect of the game was nonsense to me. I read it all, but it's jus...

[i]peeks at hours played and messages begging me to stop[/i] [b]Okay[/b] ... it's about time I tell you exactly what you're getting here beyond the minimalistic puzzle dungeon crawling poem reader described on the store page. (that stuff is all pretty on point) [h1]You are getting a game with roughly 60 individual puzzles using around 10 different mechanics.[/h1] Among them: [list][*]a clever set of rules for movement, pushing and smashing [*]skeleton and zombie enemies with differing behaviour [*]termporary and permanent pickups that can be used by you and enemies [*]hazards (pits and spikes)[/list] Both are a little difficult to pin an exact number on. Puzzles, because there are plenty simple transitionary ones in the story (they are excellent for teaching you) and rotated or mirrored variants (that make a difference for the solution). Mechanics because you may view them more or less fine grained. All of that is presented to you in two story acts and a dungeon crawler mode, which...

[b][i]Seek Etyliv[/i] is a fantastic little dungeon puzzler where the content is bigger than what the packaging suggests.[/b] Now you won't likely get more than a weekend out of this, but if you try to unlock all the characters and achievement hunt - you will have some quality gaming hours in front of you. People that enjoy [i]Slayaway[/i] would dig this one. [b]Pros:[/b] +The story does a great job of walking you through the mechanics while gradually adding layers of complexity +The artwork and UI are clean and functional +Controller support is nice +There are lots of cool display options (ie. scanlines and such) +There are a ton of characters to unlock through completing various tasks [b]Meh:[/b] =Now I liked the idea of a poem puzzler, but the actual poetry and story could have been better in my humble opinion [b]Cons:[/b] -I had to complete the storyline before I was given an option to increase zoom; now I hear that this was a problem on my end, but I did try to push 'escape' an...

You'll get through all the puzzles in about an hour. After that, you'll unlock the ""roguelike"" mode, which has you solve a random set of puzzles (among those you've already solved) in a row, without failing. As you do that, you unlock different icons -- but nothing else. The icons just act like badges, and, as far as I could tell, don't affect the gameplay at all. At this point, the game just becomes about repetition and perfection. All you've left to do is to solve the same puzzles over and over again, perhaps trying to get a perfect solution -- just not my thing, really. And the main problem is there's just not that many puzzles: you'll start remembering them by heart soon enough. There's only so much you can do with a 3x3 grid. There's nothing inherently -bad- about this game, I just wouldn't recommend spending £5 on it. I mean, sure, it's not a lot of money, but there are MANY free flash puzzle games out there that I've found to be much more challenging and enjoyable.

Bought this on a whim since the asthetics looked interesting. Since there's only a limited amount of puzzles, you're going to start seeing the same ones over and over on your way to a puzzle you haven't solved yet or failed solving earlier. Repetition and puzzles really don't mix.

Wow... impressive game. This is definitely one of the best short minimalist puzzle games I've played in a while. I like how the dungeon crawling elements mask how you'd typically see the puzzles in a game like this implemented (arbitrary shapes, gems, etc) to make it more interesting. The puzzles are fun to solve and aren't too difficult with some trickier ones scattered in there (so far at least after 30min or so), and it's neat how many concepts seem crammed into such a small grid. It's worth picking up.

Interesting little puzzle dungeon crawler. At first it just seemed like a scripted series of puzzles with snippets of story to go with it. But as I finished the two acts it became a challenging rogue like dungeoncrawler. Definitely unexpected, as I thought the game was over after the first 2 acts as it said end of story.

This is a small and cute little game that I do not recommend. The puzzles themselves are fine even great sometimes. There’s even a lil story which is really neat. The visuals are cute too. The issue rises with the game-play loop. With limited elements to the puzzles and the size of the puzzles being 3 by 3, there can only be so many solutions meaning you will do the same puzzles over and over again. Its too short and too repetitive. A shame really.

I'll just go ahead and say that this is one of the most fun and creative games I've played in recent memory. How would you classify this...? I guess it's a puzzle / rogue-(very)lite with a story, simple yet effective graphics and in general just a really unique blend of game mechanics. All you got is a square (3x3) on which your character has to move, solve puzzles and beat enemies. One mistake and you die. Try again. The puzzles are a nice mix of very easy and very hard ones. There are several challenging achievements to get that put your puzzling skills to the test. All in all, Seek Etyliv is a great game for fans of puzzle games with some unique extra elements. Not a very long game, but wow is it fun! Very simple, but also very addicting.

I expected minimalist and out of the box gameplay. I got an oh-so-tragic-poem and minimalist gameplay, but not out of the box, but learn the rules and stick to them. Each level is a puzzle and there are really not that much possibilities on a 3x3 tile area. The game is well done considering the game design of a 3x3 area, but it turns out it's pretty boring and easy. Not worth playing imo. If you like poems then read them.