The Shape of Things Reviews

A precious little game! I wasn't sure about it but the positive reviews and sale price convinced me to give it a try. It's slightly more complex than I expected because each puzzle piece can either be scaled, panned or rotated but every puzzle has a mix of those for each piece, though just one per piece (I expected each puzzle to keep to one movement option for some reason, thus being more simplified). I'm someone who doesn't usually pay attention to what a puzzle looks like when it's finished, as long as there are lots of them and they're all different, but I quite enjoyed the cute graphics and models in this. The environments are animated and each have their own sound effects which is quite charming. The music is nice as well and didn't feel repetitive. The puzzles don't require 100% accuracy but they didn't feel too forgiving - right in the sweet spot. Snapping in that final piece is very satisfying. A very cozy, relaxing and calming game that I very much enjoyed my time with. I finished the main game and immediately bought both DLC. I didn't get much out of the gachapon feature; a regular level select would have been just as effective and less cumbersome, but some people seem to enjoy it so I'm not complaining. The controls (very simple and can be played with just a mouse) can be a bit finicky at first because depending on how you have the puzzle object rotated, you may need to move the mouse left in order to move a piece to the right, which can be unintuitive. You do get the hang of it though. I think my biggest (very minor) annoyance was how finicky it was to rotate the stand that holds the gacha balls; I kept misclicking and opening a ball. It also takes several click and drags to turn it to the far side. I completely missed one of the features (the one on the ceiling) until after I'd finished the base game. Not a big deal especially for me, just make sure you fully explore the room if you want to see every feature. It took me 3 hours to finish the base game and another hour to finish both DLC. I feel I moved pretty quick though.

The puzzle style is cozy and easy to play. The graphic of the game is cute and soothing. The game control is quite frustrated that it wouldn't follow the way I move my mouse. Some of the puzzles were so easy to solve while some of them were so hard that the pieces needs to align perfectly to pass. Overall, I enjoy playing this game.