Briquid Review

I’ve long been a fan of physics in games - from people who ragdoll to simply displacing sand, it’s something I love. So when I saw the trailer for Briquid and witnessed water physics as well as gravity manipulation, I knew that I wanted to play it.

Briquid sees you moving water around 100 puzzle levels, from where it currently is into marked areas. Your only tools are removing bricks, placing bricks and changing gravity in up to four directions. “Up to” because not all levels allow you to change gravity, and in those that do you can’t always change it in all four directions. That means that there is a ton of challenge to be had in this game.

As you complete levels (or quit out of them in annoyance with only 36.8% of water in the marked areas) you unlock more. The higher your completion in each level, the faster you unlock more levels. It’s similar to many puzzle games which require you to collect a certain amount of stars, but this is much easier to actually unlock levels. Any completion percentage counts towards your overall total, and thus levels will unlock.

That’s not to say the game is easy. I had an early run of 100% completion, but before I knew it that was dropping - and I would go for several levels without getting over 90%. Again, Briquid has 100 levels, and I was only around 63% completion by level 75. To give the game some extra length (it’s around four hours long if you’re quite good at it), there is Steam Workshop support, for you to create your own levels and download them from other players.

Briquid is fairly simple graphically, with a basic UI and very few colours, but that suits it perfectly. It’s a puzzle game, the only thing that needs to look nice is the water - and it does. The music isn’t annoying, but it’s fairly forgettable. I found myself sticking on something to watch or listen to while I played, with the in-game music turned down.

If you’re in the mood for a simple to play puzzler with a physics motif, then Briquid is a perfect game to drop into. It’s asking price is pocket money, and it will keep you interested for hours. It’s the definition of cheap and cheerful.