Amaze!

Genre: Puzzle

Players: 1-2 Co-Op (Local)

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Review:

Amaze! is a family-friendly Puzzle game released in 2019 on mobile devices, then ported to PlayStation 4 and Nintendo Switch in 2023. This game has players sliding colored balls across a puzzle, with your ball painting the puzzle as you move, with the goal being to paint the entire puzzle.

The premise of this game is simple, and so too is the gameplay, which uses simple 3D geometric shapes in a clean environment, accompanied by squishing sounds for the ball as it slides around and collides with walls. This is all backed by a decent New Agey soundtrack that works well for the game.

The gameplay here works well enough, but that’s mainly because it’s so simple – you just move left, right, up, and down. While this simple gameplay makes the game highly accessible, it also makes it simple and repetitive. Apart from the shape of each level, there’s nothing really changing here, and it would have been nice to see this game build on its core simplicity by adding new gameplay mechanics as you go.

There’s a 2-player mode here, which in theory could be a competitive mode, but it uses the levels created for the single-player game which aren’t conducive to competitive play. If anything, the multiplayer works as a co-op experience.

When it comes to content and options, what’s here is mostly pretty good, though I have to say this with a huge caveat that I’ll get to in a moment. The game comes with 150 puzzles, with more available via DLC, which is decent enough for this game’s $4 price tag. There are also additional timed and limited-move game modes in addition to the core “just complete the level” mode, except… well…

Except, the timed levels are only available via paid DLC, or if you purchased one of the bundles that includes this content. Yeah, this game suffers from some pretty gross monetization that chops up the game’s content and tries to sell it separately. The fact that this is a port of a half-decade old free mobile game is bad enough, but to lock gameplay modes behind this paid DLC, modes that simply reuse the levels already in the game? Ugh, that’s even more gross.

Despite the sleazy way that Amaze! has been dissected to sell it for parts on Nintendo Switch, this is still a decent Puzzle game, albeit an extremely simple and repetitive one. If you’re looking for something uncomplicated and inexpensive, and either get one of the bundles or don’t mind buying the game piecemeal, you may find Amaze! to be a worthwhile purchase, although it’s far from a great one.

tl;dr – Amaze! is a family-friendly Puzzle game where players slide a ball around a maze, trying to cover every square of the maze with paint. It’s a simple game, but one that works well enough. It’s just a shame that the game’s publisher hacked this game to pieces to try to sell it as bundles and DLC. Puzzle fans wanting something simple may still want to give this a look, but just be aware of the DLC shenanigans going on here.

Grade: C+

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