Two pack review: Puzzles Galaxies and Save Halloween: City of Witches

So much like the last time I did a two pack, this is two smaller indie games I didn't get that much play out of. On the plus side, they're both puzzle games, so at least it feels like we have a theme this week.

You can actually get the gist of Puzzle Galaxies basically from looking at the screenshots - which look nice - in that it is a "match four on a platform" game. You highlight two platforms at a time and transfer crystals until a platform is homogeneous, and then it locks off. After you get all the platforms done, the little space station launches and that's the entire game. This is pretty good for being a relaxing, simple brain puzzle you can play at a little to mellow out. It certainly looks fine, and as bundle fare goes, it's fine.

Except it has enemies who pick up and steal crystals to swap them around. This is such an odd decision, since you often end up in the last 25% of a board waiting for the enemies to drop their crystals. There is nothing lamer in a game than sitting there waiting on a timed board for the game to move on, but here you go and there it is. I wouldn't really recommend puzzle galaxies, as it is very simple and yet doesn't really do well with being a simple relaxation game for that. Also, it only has four music tracks, which get repetitive quite quickly.

I would, oddly enough, recommend Save Halloween. I know for a fact I got this game from a groupees greenlight bundle, where I honestly remember seeing it and expecting like a trash HOG or VN or something. But those basically always have cards, so like, why wouldn't you pick it up in a $1.50 bundle you're going to make fat stacks of card bux on?

Instead, Save Halloween is actually a very campy themed match 3 game with a ridiculous amount of variety. The board shapes change with pieces flopping on on the dialogue, the piece icons change, you get lots of power ups and upgrades you gradually unlock by adding things "to your house" which is of course a spooky Halloween looking mansion. It also has various roadblocks to slow your progress, like parts of the board being blocked off til you break barriers or spiders that spread til you destroy them. Oh, also you get activated abilities, though I didn't get far enough to unlock all of them. The game at its core is very simple, but with timed mode off it is extremely relaxing and plays quite smoothly. Most boards are completed by meeting certain criteria, and the game even has vaguely boss battles. I say vaguely because they're not especially vicious, but they do add to the variety.

The art assets especially are just so ridiculous, and the early steps of the game are voiced - and then replaced with text only and suddenly all the grammar in the game breaks. It's not a "good" game, but it is weirdly delightful and I think I'll buy a copy for my mom on sale day just to see her laugh at it since she's a big halloween fan. I wouldn't recommend it if you want something really stunning out of your five bucks, but it's certainly a solid enough match-3 if you're looking for one to goof around with.

I can't really explain the deal with the voice acting dropping off five levels in and being replaced by euro-broken english. It's just very strange. You only paid the woman to voice like, all of four or five lines? And only paid for the translation on like 17 clips?

Still, it honestly just adds to the silly camp humor.