6/10

I am the master baiter of all penguins!

What is it: A sliding game with an interesting mechanic. Each level is a little island, or rather an ice floe, split into a grid, with some spots slippery ice and some sturdy snow, and a few penguins. The goal is to get all the penguins into the water by tricking them to slide on the ice over the edge. But you don't move penguins directly, you put fish on the ground to bait them into moving that way. This really complicates things, since more than one penguin can see the fish and start moving toward it, and you have to make sure there is a place in sight for the fish. You may deadlock a penguin if it gets in a spot with no neighboring cells in sight, similar to pushing a box into a corner in Sokoban. Then more complications arise: seals show up, and they eat penguins on sight, and mounds and hills make this a proper 3D puzzle.

The puzzles are good, not too easy and not too hard, and they employ the mechanics well. Quite a lot of levels require 3D thinking, and a few levels make good use of the bumping effect when two animals rush for the same fish, or the chaining effect when you prebuild a path of fishes that keeps the penguin one step ahead of the seals. You can also stack animals, make a sandwich of seal penguin seal and slide them all into the sea! I quite enjoyed playing this.

What makes me give it such a low score is the lack of quality of life features. There are no settings other than an audio volume slider, the angle of view and simplicity of the graphics make it hard to see and click behind tall walls, only works with a mouse, a few inconsistencies in the mechanics, a few levels that I think had unintended solutions. There is a level editor, but it only works with the clipboard, if you “play” a custom level before copying it to the clipboard it will be lost upon completion. At least there is good Undo and fast restart, along with cloud saving and achievements.

With a few QoL improvements, this could be a good little thinky game, but if you don't mind the lack of features you should give it a try.

How hard is it: Starts easy and gradually ramps up to a moderate difficulty.

How long is it: 83 levels, of which 20 are “bonus” levels, usually just alternative versions of the main levels. 2-5 hours to finish. Levels cannot be skipped, although the next chapter unlocks a little before finishing the current one, and the bonus levels are optional.

Level design: Mostly good, small and compact levels that can get challenging. Too many of the bonus levels I felt were too similar to the main levels, with just one or two tiles changed from snow to ice or the other way around.

Quality: Good mechanics and puzzles, poor implementation. Undo, fast restart, a decent level select. Mouse only control, except for a few shortcuts for undo/restart/menu. Almost no settings, quite bright with no dark mode. Cloud saving and some progress achievements. Has a level editor but no workshop integration. Fast and responsive.

Worth the price: Yes.

Most positive aspect for me: Good mechanics, reminded me of Mooselutions.

Most negative aspect for me: Bad angle of view making it hard to understand some 3D level.

What would make it better: Steam workshop integration for the custom level editor. Keyboard and controller support. The ability to rotate the view, or at least a better angle of view. More settings, at least a full screen toggle. Multiple profiles, or at least progress reset button. A dark mode for accessibility. More tricky achievements.

Also consider:

Mooselutions, good puzzle game in which you also bait animals to move them.

IceFitter, hard puzzle game with sliding on ice and many other cool mechanics.

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