In this deceptively simple puzzle game by Emiel de Graaf, you'll be Steppin' Stones over other stones, building pathways to the goal. The number on the stone indicates how many can be placed along the path you choose. Click and hold on the stone you want to use and drag your mouse over one of the arrows, then release to lay down the stones in that direction, connecting with other stones as needed to reach the outlined zone in each of the sixteen levels.
Your strategy for success means planning out which direction to go as well as the proper sequence for clicking and laying out the series of stones; this will likely leave you to restarting a level from scratch a few times until the solution becomes clear. Gameplay compares to Huebrix yet, in this case, the white-on-orange monotone presentation creates a new kind of challenge, making Steppin' Stones simultaneously easy and thoughtful, a great way to chill during a coffee break while still keeping your brain cells steppin' up.
This was short and sweet.
It takes about three levels to understand what you're doing, and the first three levels seem well designed to help you do just that. Once you get over that initial hump, you can tackle the levels in a pretty logical way.
It's possible to work backwards and figure out the solution to every level, which makes this particular puzzle game better suited to logically minded players than most. The limited number of moves means you won't get swamped by a theoretically unlimited number of possibilities.
One possible downside (or maybe upside, depending on perspective) is that the levels don't ever contain red herrings. Every block gets used, and you always get the solution without any possible slack. That colors your thinking on a few levels, where you decide how to manipulate a block based purely on trying to fit it in the solution. That makes some levels easier than they would be otherwise. In particular, most levels only have one block that lines up with the goal, so you immediately know that block is last, and that you need to line up the others with it. Then again, for a casual puzzler the simple logic eases the strain and keeps the difficulty at a low to middling level which is a reasonable goal.
With only 16 levels, the puzzle doesn't wear out its welcome before you're done with it. It's a great bit of fun that'll take a seasoned puzzler a quick 15 minutes to complete.
You can definitely pass levels 10 and 13 without using all the blocks. Here are images from just before the final move.
http://i273.photobucket.com/albums/jj206/Maat_Mons/level10_zps9c28d0d9.png
http://i273.photobucket.com/albums/jj206/Maat_Mons/level13_zps3d4a1515.png
Excellent. I just wish it had an Undo feature.
I do wish these games would pause on the completed level. I hate it when you get the solution and it just disappears off the screen
Kind of strange to me this doesn't have a level selection feature...otherwise, it's pretty good.
Clean, simple but clever design, and just the right length. Nice!
I actually played through all the levels twice. Or more, since there isn't a saving feature. Wish there were more levels!
A level editor would be awesome.
Actually there was one level that I completed without using one of the blocks at all...
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