A Maze Fox Reviews

A pleasant puzzling experience. Sokoban style with a little extra.

[h1]FoxMania: The Quest To Review All Fox Games On Steam![/h1] [i]Conditions for inclusion: [list] [*] -The player character must be consistently a fox; the fox must not be merely a skin or a character option [*] -Must have 100% working Steam achievements [*] -Must not be a visual novel [/list][/i] [b]Game #14: A Maze Fox[/b] This is an annoyingly slow block-pushing game. The fox takes about a full second to walk a single square. No undo, just a button to start the whole level over. You also have to start the level over if you run out of moves. Move limits are very restrictive, making most of the solutions very obvious. There are only 40 levels. The graphics are very cute, almost no complaints here, although it's annoying to see the fox have only a single forward-facing sprite. The later puzzles introduce bear traps which open or close after every step, adding a parity element to the puzzle. They were really the only interesting puzzle element the game introduced, and it was a shame to see them appear so late. There's a secret berry in each level, accessible by finding the correct wall to push into. Have fun wasting a bunch of steps trying to find the berry, only to render the level uneatable. Interestingly, grabbing a berry restores the steps required to find it, which theoretically means the level is still beatable, but it hardly matters because you only have to grab a berry once and you don't even have to finish the level for it to count. [b]Suggestions for the game developer to make a better game:[/b] [list] [*] -The fox needs to move much faster. Players should not have to dread playing a level because of the time it takes to walk. [*] -Get rid of the step limits. Let the player feel free to experiment and spend their time in the level. Instead, give the player a gold star on a level for beating par. Maybe a double-gold star for beating par and grabbing the berry on the same run, and new achievements for doing so. Both casual and dedicated players love this sort of system; there's a reason every single mobile game has star-ratings for levels. [*] -More levels would be nice. Why not aim for 100? The bear traps were a nice new game mechanic; I'm sure you could come up with more new game mechanics to fill out a bigger set of levels. [*] -Undo is definitely considered a standard feature for a Sokoban game, so you should consider adding it. Though it is understandably difficult to implement. If you don't want to add undo, it should suffice to keep the levels short and sweet. [/list] I give this game a 3 / 10. The slow walking really makes this game a miserable experience, though thankfully it's over fast enough. It's about 1-2 hours to 100%.

Cute fun and relaxing. An enjoyable little diversion for the price.