There's something inherently soothing about sliding puzzles. No wait, hear me out. You're just thinking they're frustrating because so frequently they're the obstacle in your escape or hidden object game, the puzzle that rears its ugly mug when you just want to open up the safe or fix the breaker system. But if you distill it down to its essence and give it a relaxing ambiance, there's something pure and satisfying about sliding some blocks around, and that's just what D. Slide from Ateta Games delivers.
The game's control system is simple. Just use the mouse to click and drag around the blocks and the celtic-knot like slider token from its original position to the gold-marked target block. Early levels are straightforward token juggling, but later levels introduce locks which must be unlocked by sliding the token into the correctly colored block. Sometimes the locks are even on timers.
Whether you enjoy D.Slide will probably depend a lot on how you approach it, particularly since the overall level of difficulty isn't as high as some other titles in the puzzle genre, and the aesthetic is fairly distinct. The level beginning and ending animations can't be skipped, because the almost steampunk-esque animation and dull metal-on-metal scraping sound is meant to soothe, and if the game wants you to be soothed, you're going to be soothed, dang it. In fact, the game's stubborn insistence on being played on its own terms is probably its biggest flaw; not only does the game in this way refuse to accommodate impatient players by allowing skips of animation, but the developers also chose to leave out a save function, which, unfortunately, means that if you don't complete all the levels in one sitting, you'll find your progress has vanished when you pick it back up again.
Despite this, D.Slide is still worth checking out. It's visual style is different and distinctive, and the simple to grasp gameplay is packaged with a few twists that not only make it easy for anyone to pick up and play, but help it stand out from the plethora of other sliding-block style puzzles. For the most part you can expect its 24 levels to go by fairly quickly; there isn't a lot to master here, and the time limit won't pose much of a threat in most cases. Still, there's something to be said about a game you can just sink into for a while and let the rest of the day melt away without worrying about frying too many brain circuits figuring out what goes where and in how many moves but how is that possible because this one only moves here and OH NOES! See, now you're all worked up, when you could have just been immersing yourself in D.Slide instead.
It didn't want to load at first.
Just refresh a few times if this happens to you.
The music reminds me of MYST.
Can't get even level 1 to work. I can slide the middle piece up, and the token/gem thing to the right onto the piece that I just moved. Then I can either move the middle piece back down or the bottom piece up, but I cannot get the token/gem thing to move vertically at all (except moving WITH the tile it's on, but that doesn't get it onto the target square).
Got it to work in Firefox; still doesn't work for me in IE.
[I can't reproduce the issue. Playing it here in IE8 without any issues. Try updating your Flash Player. -Jay]
Good fun but a little on the simple side as pointed out in the review
Pros: Extremely good production values. With the exception of the problems playing in IE, a very technically solid piece of work.
Cons: Way too easy. I didn't even have to stop to think on any of the levels. Even the last level didn't require any planning... just slide until I've unlocked everything, and then go for home. No challenge.
I was playing the game, got halfway through, then closed it. I then read the walkthrough in more detail and I saw that it lacks a save feature. DAMNIT!
kdausman is right. The games has great production values, but was too easy.
I beat it under 30 minutes.
I thought this was nice actually, although not challenging at all. I felt the timer detracted from the game though; it never became a problem (I think I solved all levels with more than 90% left), but its mere presence meant that I felt more rushed than soothed. If they removed the timer and added some more interesting levels, this could be really great.
ok. First things first. Fun game, not something you see often nowadays, this style of game.
serious turn off.
Sliding controls.
PAIN IN THE REAR.
I got about half way through the game, until i ragequit.
I found I was unable to do something so simple, like sliding the puck from one, into another... unless I moved blocks to barracade the one the puck is in from moving... and even then that was an iffy thing.
WAY to sensitive on the 'left right up down' thing. When I'm spending more time, trying to get the puck to move, then actually moving it... The fun factor goes down.
Get that lv 1 problem as stated earlier. On FF 3.6. Will try 4 or IE..
[I highly doubt it's your browser. Try updating your Flash Player. -Jay]
Total score 2003.
Does that make me cool, or does that make me 8 years old?
I liked the game, but after you beat it there is a link to a site to play Mechanism 3, and on that site there is a collection of pornographic games and adverts. Shouldn't take away from the game but children could easily follow that link...
The game has a good concept, it should leave the timer, I was reading the comments 'til I found out I ran out of time when I got back after that the game froze.
I don't consider retrying since I don't like games which fill the menu with ways to get you to their site, I'll leave this unrated rather than low-rating it.
Wonderful graphics, easy puzzles - nice casual fun.
bio
Nice game, pretty to look at, but I agree that the sliding is too sensitive. I kept having moves added at the end of almost every round because the final block would move when I put the slider into it. So my score was lower than necessary...
Also, there was a timer?
There's nothing like the friction of ancient Egyptian cobblestones if ya get my drift!
Hit a problem on level three where I could slide it sideways, but not up to a connected square. Only way I could get it to work again was screwing around with my browser's font size. A bit of a game-breaker.
Enjoyable enough game for a few minutes, but I have to admit, I didn't even make it halfway through before its grip on my interest slipped.
*shrug*
The game just lost my saved data!
I know the levels aren't really that hard, but I can't focus my eyes right on the screen. It's hard to track and see what is going on with the dull colors (I can only increase the brightness and contrast so much...).
[The game doesn't save your progress as noted in the review. -Jay]
i am having problems with the vertical sliding as well, i am using windows 7 with ie9 and flash version 10
[Update your Flash Player. It's up to version 10.2 now. -Jay]
Nicely put together. I didn't have any issues with the controls-- are the folx who are playing on touchscreens? Just curious.
I got irritated with the timer, but that's just me. And not being able to go back and redo levels kinda bugs me too. But it sure looks and sounds great.
+ good graphics and sounds production, myst feeling.
- stones sometimes hang and require a level reset
- no complexity curve
- timers dont add to the game and are just an annoyance
- no save function
= would fit perfectly as one of those annoying :) slides puzzles into a puzzle game, but in my opinion hardly works as a game of its own.
That Was Easy!
It fails for me in the same way as others have described in Firefox 3.6.13 with Adobe Flash Player 10.2.152.26. It runs ok in Google Chrome 9.0.597.98 with built-in Adobe Flash Player 10.2.154.12.
The idea is good. Graphics and sound are good. Dragging is awkward and a poor choice for orthogonal movement control. Not having automatic progress saving is unforgivable.
On balance, the game's negative factors just about outweigh the positive ones for me.
I got physically stuck on 14. Nothing to do with the challenge, the gate just was being a pain in the butt for me. When it was open, it wouldn't move through, and when it was closed, it wouldn't move either. I had to glitch up the button by pressing it so fast that it thought that the pressed button meant close and the off button meant open (unless thats how it should be, but at the start of the level, I'm sure it was the opposite).
Anyone understand how they calculate level scores? I really didn't see a difference between levels I got 100 on and levels I got 50 on.
When you start the game it looks like there's a choice between 'new game' or 'continue', but no saving option (like you say in the review?)
Lovely graphics, nice/fun puzzles, annoying delaying/wooshing stuff in between levels, turnoff timers. Can I say just how much I hate timers? So many lovely little puzzle games are ruined by adding timers. Thank you.
I'll tell you, if the slider puzzles that pop in room escape/point and click games here and there were this easy, I wouldn't mind them nearly so much.
No save? Seriously? Nowadays, making a game of any noticeable length without a save function is like making a really pretty coffee mug without a handle. Sure, it doesn't impede the mug's ability to hold coffee, but it does make for a pretty crap mug.
Major, major negative points for that.
Which is a shame, because the rest of the game seems great - I'm just not the kind of gamer who sits down and plays all the way through a puzzle game in one sitting. I prefer to come back to it over the course of a few days, so I'm never going to get a chance to see what this game has to throw at me.
A mute button would be nice too, but the music's rather unobtrusive, so I'm not too bothered by that.
If you're going to make a game with a timer, make the controls easier. I had trouble sliding tiles as well as the token on some levels. Given that issue and the ease of the game, I quit halfway.
Also, someone mentioned the scoring, it doesn't seem to make sense, unless there's a hidden "par" score and it deducts points for the number of moves you took or the time...or both. Either way, after level 3 or 4, I was wondering what the point of a score even was.
The idea of the game is good, but it needs better controls and more difficult levels (bigger boards, like 10 x 10). What would stink though even with bigger boards and slick controls, the maker puts in ridiculously hard timing gates (those blue gates). I could see that being a quick path to ragequit on a relatively decent game.
I enjoyed it. Despite the negatives it is worth the short amount of time it will take to finish.
I suspect the score is based on how quickly you complete each level. I found I could make lots of redundant moves as long as I finished quickly.
I have the same issue with the vertical movement on the very first level. The tile slides, but not the circle.
I'm using IE8 and have the newest version of Flash 10.2 as suggested by Jay. :/
Dr. Curiosity was right. I could not get it to work vertically, but after increasing the size of the game (ctrl+mouse wheel) I was able to get it to work.
Beautiful game with simple, delightful play. But ruined by the addition of timed blocks and an overall timer.
It's a pretty nice game. I repeatedly had an bug though where the "Play" button didn't appear once the game had loaded, so I had to reload the whole thing a number of times before the Play button appeared.
I enjoyed the gameplay. It's short, and only took me about 20-30 minutes to beat. Score 1997. It would be nice if it saved your progress, but it's short enough that it's not a big detriment.
The music actually reminded me a bit of Portal's. It think it fit the game pretty well.
3/5.
I really liked this one!! Simple, as described, but very good graphics. I agree with some others that the sensitivity of moving the blocks versus the "puck" was a bit tricky, but that didn't bother me too much.
It only took about 20 minutes to complete the 24 levels but it was a 20 minutes I enjoyed.
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