DotPlus

"DotPlus" is a puzzle game developed by hima using the ruby programming language and the gosu game library and is one of those projects that's going to be a bit of a challenge to write a lengthy review for. This is because the game is all about it's gameplay with the narrative hook about the Tower of Babel being rather irrelevant. To make matters worse I think the title for calunio's review is a pretty good description for this game.

calunio
Very professional game, not a great puzzle

To start with the negatives the game isn't that fun. To be fair puzzle games tend to rely a lot on being both simple and addictive in my opinion. For example a block pushing puzzle is pretty straight-forward, but add in a few additional rules about same-colored blocks disappearing if three or more blocks are in contact or the player needing to move boxes in and out of an area in a tricky order and this simple puzzle type can become quite challenging to overcome. At the same time pushing a block around in order to get it in the right spot can be highly addictive.

"DotPlus" on the other hand has simple rules involving the player combining numbered blocks in order to create a specified sum. While this is pretty basic with 8 = 4 + 4 or 2 + 2 + 3 + 0 + 1 or 1 + 4 + 2 + 0 + 1. It also isn't that addictive to perform basic math operations in my opinion. This only gets worse when your trying to do a whole lot of addition while under time constraints. It also doesn't really come across as a puzzle that needs completion. If anything it reminds me of when I was in grade school and learning a basic addition table through practice. Admittedly there are endless puzzle games out there like "Tetris", but I'm not sure crunching numbers is as addictive as sliding a block into the right spot to make a line vanish.



At any rate once you've added up enough blocks to reach the right sum the blocks stop all their movement and you can try to click on a bunch more blocks that reach that sum as well in order to create large combo chains that can be used to clear the board for a moment. Unfortunately after getting a big clear the board quickly fills back up to the halfway point. As such it can be a real pain in the $## to keep the board relatively cleared as the game progresses.

On a brighter note the presentation for this project is solid with the game itself being bright and colorful. Combined with some decent background music provided by Brandon Abley and this game is easily one of the nicest looking games I've seen on this sight. Sadly this isn't enough to save the game in my opinion. I basically reached my limit with this one after about fifteen minutes and a few runs in order to get a hang for it. And after that I wanted to move onto something else, but I'll admit this game probably is worth a quick look if you enjoy math.