Velone

Genre: Puzzle

Players: 1

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Review:

Velone is a Puzzle game first released on PC in 2022 and ported to Nintendo Switch in 2023. In this game, players move stones on a hexagonal grid to create a working automated system for an alien civilization. Those who played the 2017 PC game Opus Magnum will likely find this game’s mechanics and layout suspiciously familiar, as it’s basically a copy of that game. However, as I often say, there’s nothing wrong with being a copy so long as it’s a good copy. So is this a good copy, and a good game?

In a word, no. Velone presents players with complex devices they’re expected to build, but does an exceedingly poor job explaining how to do so. Starting this game, I felt like I needed a tutorial for the tutorial. The mechanics of different implements you’re given are not properly explained, the different programming functions you’re expected to make use of are not properly explained, and even something as simple as rotating or removing placed objects isn’t properly explained. The tutorial tells you to do things, but it doesn’t tell you how to do things, why you’re doing things, or even what buttons to use to do things.

Now, I have never personally played Opus Magnum, but given that game’s overwhelmingly positive review scores on Steam and Metacritic, I suspect these problems aren’t present in that game.

It’s a shame too, because the presentation here is actually quite good, with some wonderfully alien and fittingly futuristic 2D visuals that really give you the sense that you are indeed working on an otherworldly machine, and although the game’s sound (I hesitate to call anything here “music”) also fits the otherworldly theme, the stilted voice clips give off the vibe of an early CD-ROM game, back when game developers were blown away by the technology’s potential but still getting used to how to implement it in a fluid manner.

If nothing else, Velone is a perfect example of how absolutely vital a good tutorial is, because this seems to be the main issue that keeps this from being a decent copycat of a highly-celebrated game. Because this game’s tutorial is so absolutely terrible, and because the gameplay is so complex, the result is a game that’s virtually unplayable. Don’t bother with it.

tl;dr – Velone is a Puzzle game where players place stones on a hexagonal grid to build an automated alien machine. The gameplay and mechanics are clearly copied from the acclaimed game Opus Magnum, but an absolutely abysmal tutorial that confuses players more than it teaches them means that the highly-complex gameplay here is rendered virtually-unplayable. Skip this one.

Grade: D+

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This game has been nominated for one or more of eShopperReviews 2023 Game Awards:

Runner-Up: Laziest Copycat

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