We hear a lot about “puzzle platformers,” but none has ever taken the notion as literally as Piece by Piece. This is a collection of tiny platform games by Neon Polygons, set within the rearrangeable pieces of a jigsaw puzzle, and it’s really ever-so smart.
Piece by Piece sets its agenda from the very first puzzle. You play as a little king dude trapped inside a single jigsaw puzzle piece. However, when you click in another piece he’s then able to run between the two—so long as there’s not a wall or obstacle blocking his path. So you’d imagine this would start with your just connecting three pieces together and running from left to right to get to grips with the conceit. But no! Piece by Piece wants you on top of things straight away, and you’re going to need to do a slightly more complicated bit of piece juggling to be able to get past a solid wall impeding your path.
In the full game, due out March 13, you’ll then spend a fair while with this little guy and his challenges, learning the neat tricks the game has to offer like falling vertically from one piece to the next, or snatching pieces away just in time such that he lands on their bottom edge before he can fall through to the next. This is then really drummed into you, and for a moment you wonder if this is it, if this is the extent of the game’s ideas, before it suddenly furls like a fabulous flower and reveals six brand new twists on the format, each with not only their own set of challenges, but then paired up to combine their features for even more. So you might now be an alien trying to move around by creating portals that only work when pieces are connected, or the cutest little drill-guy who burrows through lines of rock, then the two combined into some really brain-pushing challenges.
The demo that’s out now is smart enough to not just stick with the opening set of puzzles, but instead jumps about a bit, quickly moving on from the king to the princess lady (who in the full game has to deal with puzzles that require some complicated jiggery-pokery to have flat puzzle pieces align rather than the usual fitting of tabs into sockets), and then to the teleporting alien, the drill guy, and finally those two combined. Said demo includes a total of 13 puzzles, and while they likely won’t have you stumped for long, they certainly give you a great idea of what’s on offer here.
In the full game you’ll be using magic tiles that can copy pieces, two-sided pieces you can flip, rotating pieces…you get the idea. And it gets much tougher as it goes along, offering some properly juicy head-scratchers. We’ll have a full review when the game is properly out, but for now you should know it’s well worth checking out the demo and putting on your wishlist.