Motif

Genre: Puzzle

Players: 1

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Review:

Motif is a family-friendly Puzzle game released on Nintendo Switch in 2021. In this game, players must arrange reflected geometric shapes to recreate a snowflake-like design.

The presentation in this game is extremely simple, yet still manages to be appealing. This is just white, line art geometric shapes against a black background, Selecting a shape plays a harp noise, and completing a puzzle plays a very short fanfare on the harp, but aside from this there is no noise or music whatsoever. However, this highly minimalist approach works very well, giving the game an elegant feel.

The gameplay here is straightforward and mostly pretty easy, although not quite as easy as you might expect. Press a button to pick up a corresponding piece and use the analog stick to move it into position, with other copies of that shape moving in seven additional reflected positions. Move the piece into the position that recreates the image shown for the puzzle (which you can call back up at any time to compare to your own). Things are kept from getting too easy and predictable due to the frequent need to overlap pieces, as well as puzzles where you have multiple pieces that must be incorporated into the puzzle.

The gameplay here works perfectly well with either traditional gamepad controls or using the touchscreen in handheld mode. This is in part due to the game subtly nudging your pieces into positions on a grid to ensure that your pieces don’t have to be placed exactly where they need to be – if you get it close enough that you clearly know what you’re doing that is deemed sufficient.

It’s hard not to appreciate what’s on offer in Motif. It’s an extremely simple Puzzle game, but one that does what it sets out to do extraordinarily well. And for $3, with over 200 puzzles, this is an excellent value, despite the game’s simplicity. If you’re a fan of Puzzle games with a Nintendo Switch, you shouldn’t pass up this superb budget-priced title.

tl;dr – Motif is a family-friendly Puzzle game where players recreate snowflake-like geometric shapes. This game has an elegant simplicity to it, and while simple both in graphics and gameplay, it is still surprisingly compelling. With this game containing over 300 puzzles for $3, this is an easy game to recommend to any Puzzle game fan on Nintendo Switch.

Grade: B

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