Glyphs of Gitzan puts a slight twist on the classic Sokoban block pushing puzzler. Instead of simply pushing blocks in a certain order to fill gaps or bypass obstacles, each pillar needs to be moved to light up all tiles on the floor. Pillars display an icon in which the direction on the floor will be lit, generally in “L” or “T” shapes.
There are 50 single screened stages in total, each growing slightly harder than the last but never becoming difficult. In fact, solving each puzzle is almost spoiled on each stage simply due to the proximity of the pieces. Meaning, that one piece that started in the lower right corner most likely belongs somewhere in the lower right corner. Pushing each block is a slow process and it is as if the developers knew this, not wanting to force players to tediously push each block across each stage.
Besides the overall slow speed of movement, my other complaint comes from the size of the pillars and how they are activated. Each movable pillar is two tiles tall. This can be problematic because it covers the tile above it due to the top-down-ish perspective. Since you cannot see what is above each moveable piece, there were many times when I stepped on spike tiles to instantly force a full restart of the stage. Sometimes these pillars also must be charged like a battery by first pushing it over a charging tile. However, these charging tiles do not add any fun to the experience nor does it any anything to the challenge; it only slows down the gameplay and makes it more tedious. Also, there is no one-button insta-restart. Players need to pause, then select the restart option if they want to retry.
Without the easy, big point Achievements tied to completing batches of stages, there is no incentive to keep playing or to play well. Granted, it is a simple $5 game so expectations can only be so high. The public domain one music track that loops, and the mini Cloud Strife knockoff playable character doesn’t exactly set the bar high in the presentation department. But, there are worse ways to burn an hour and a few bucks.
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By: Zachary Gasiorowski, Editor in Chief myGamer.com
Twitter: @ZackGaz
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RATING
OUR RATING - 4.5
4.5
SCORE
A no replay value Sokoban title about moving pillars into position so all tiles on the floor become lit, that only costs five bucks, but has a limited presentation. Easy Achievements though.