Shaped Review

I’m not a fan of puzzle games usually. They’re tedious, boring, and just too simple at times. I come from bigger strategy games such as Hearts of Iron and Civilization, so the simplicity of the usual puzzle games curbs my interest in it pretty quickly. However, Shaped uses this simplicity to its advantage by creating a pleasing shape-based aesthetic.

Shaped is a fun puzzle game with very minimalist design choices. Don't let the basic colour pallet and graphics fool you, because under that facade is a really challenging chess-like strategy game. You are a little blue circle and your goal is to reach the portal to complete the mission, or you have to defeat all of the enemies in the level by taking them as you would in chess. You can perform basic lateral movement and jumps to complete the large amount of levels. The layout of these levels vary in shape and size and can have some interesting twists to them. Imagine a chess board then re-arrange all of these little pieces into a different pattern and you will make a Shaped level. All of these levels are well thought out to be challenging and rewarding. They’re almost perfect. Shaped gives you ten consumable arrows to use to help you through the levels, but you don't want to become dependent on these because you will have to purchase more. As far as I'm aware there isn't a way of earning these, so it's best not to use them as a crutch.

The only negative aspect about Shaped is this one little microtransaction. I would've been perfectly fine with advertising on this game as long as it wasn't too obtrusive. This game is absolutely fantastic even with this negative aspect and I highly recommend it.