Tiles review

Reviewed on: Xbox One

Originally released in early 2017 on Steam, now released for Xbox One and PS4.

As the creators themselves like to say: “The only action-puzzle game that will convince your mind and burn your fingertips”.

That’s not far from the truth: Tiles is a game that will frustrate you in all the best possible ways, so keep anything easily breakable away, and move the furniture back, because now it’s time for fast, hard puzzle solving.

In this puzzle game – and also, as I call it, a great stress reliever – the only goal of the game is to go from the starting position to the red square, while you walk with the D-PAD, removing all the other little squares from the game board.

The blue tiles disappear a few seconds after you touch them; the light blue must be stepped on once before revealing the standard blue tiles, the yellow will vanish permanently after a few seconds, while the orange will blink and switch off, giving temporary passage to clear other sections before blinking and switching off again. If you slip up, you start all over again.

The game is very simple to learn, but it doesn’t take long before the pace really picks up and your hand-eye coordination will be truly tested many, many times; and of course, your patience.

In total, there are ninety puzzles to clear in the game, with each page holding fifteen maps, increasing in difficulty as you advance; for the most experienced and fastest, you can complete all the puzzles within two hours or even less, but only if you get a good grip on the rhythm of the puzzles.

At some point your fingers will tire, and you won’t have that dexterity from the start of the game anymore, and those are the moments when you will get tired of restarting the game, but most puzzles last only between ten and thirty seconds, so only minimal progress is lost.

Conclusion: the game is simple, but it is a great stress reliever while you chat with your friends, or just pass the time waiting for something, or for that update to your game. It has an online community, in which you can create and share your own puzzles and play other players’; the game’s AI defines the difficulty of the map you create.

It is also possible to play co-op, something I found a bit strange for a game like this, but nothing that stops you from having fun with a friend. The game’s soundtrack is like waiting-room music, and doesn’t get tiresome, and you will always forget it exists.

The version tested was on an Xbox One.

Fun: 4
Audio and visuals: 3
Gameplay: 4