It’s no secret that I love puzzle games. I love games that make you think, that offer new and exciting mechanics, or that manage to incorporate meaningful stories alongside these challenges. SlabWell: The Quest For Kaktun’s Alpaca, unfortunately, falls short in a number of these areas. The result? A fairly bland experience that overstays its welcome.

Developer: Undercoders

Publisher: Undergames

3 Hours Played // Review Copy Provided // $9.99

In SlabWell, thief duo Sam and Jacky have set the jade alpaca of Kaktun’s pyramid in their sights. You take control of Sam and explore the pyramid while Jacky intermittently radios in from outside with pointers. You descend the pyramid through a series of themed levels; these must be cleared by successfully stepping on every tile (or slab) in the room. With the exception of a few special slab types, once you’ve stepped on a tile, it activates, preventing you from stepping on it again. Add in a variety of room configurations and obstacles, and that’s pretty much the game in a nutshell.

It’s a simple formula – perhaps a little too simple for the length of the game. In fact, many of the game’s 100+ levels are straightforward to the point of monotony. Walk around, navigate the obstacles, rinse and repeat. While early gameplay provides some satisfaction, this gives way to weariness when you realise that the gameplay never fundamentally evolves past walking around each floor in increasingly convoluted ways.

It might look complicated, but this level probably only took two minutes to complete, if that.

In what appears to be an attempt to address this, you’ll intermittently be chased by the ghost of Kaktun, who follows the exact route you take. He’s fast, so you’ll need to be speedy. Really speedy. I’m admittedly not the biggest fan of timed puzzle games, so this design choice was never going to sit well with me. However, a number of these levels involved a significant difficulty spike that makes me question whether the game had actually been playtested before release. For example, there was one level in particular where your path would essentially cross over itself multiple times. This means that not only do you have to worry about Kaktun catching up with you, you also have to be wary of accidentally moving too quickly and running headlong into him. It’s a one-strike death mode, so there are no second chances if he catches you.

Completing these challenging sets of levels is something of a relief, but this feeling soon turns to apathy as the challenge subsides. It goes without saying that the inconsistent difficulty curve of SlabWell detracts from its enjoyability. Unfortunately, there’s also no option to skip the Kaktun levels (or any levels, for that matter). While normally I am not the biggest fan of skip mechanisms, in SlabWell I found myself longing for one.

The level from hell.

SlabWell also fails to redeem itself in its graphics or audio. Regarding the former, character animations are stilted, awkward, and heavily recycled. Sam’s idling animation – if indeed it’s intentional – looked like a glitch, as his arms would kind of shudder and he’d almost fall over. Needless to say, it was more than a little distracting. Similarly, the textures and assets used in the game are somewhat unremarkable. The game fared a little better as far as the audio was concerned, but before long the tracks and sound effects became repetitive and dull.

If it wasn’t for the game’s sharp difficulty spikes in the Kaktun levels, SlabWell might have been great as a young gamer’s introduction to the puzzle genre. After all, it’s not a fundamentally terrible game, even if it’s a little bland. Unfortunately, though, the game’s wild difficulty spikes and its heavy focus on quick reaction times means that some may find it too dextrously demanding. On the other hand, the fairly repetitive puzzles mean that players looking for a more cerebral challenge are probably going to get bored quickly.

Very young players may find these explanations helpful, although they rob you of the satisfaction of working things out yourself. Thankfully, they’re skippable.

At the end of the day, SlabWell isn’t terrible, but it’s also not all that much fun. After about 30 or 40 levels I had had enough; needless to say, with its 100+ levels, the game dramatically overstays its welcome. There are only so many times you can do the same thing before saying enough is enough. That said, there is a multiplayer option if you’re looking for a casual co-op experience. This mode would probably make the game more enjoyable, but I unfortunately wasn’t able to test it out. Regardless of the multiplayer mode’s potential merits, however, SlabWell: The Quest For Kaktun’s Alpaca isn’t a particularly ground-breaking game, and it won’t be your first choice if you’ve got a puzzle craving.

Thanks for reading! If you’re in the mood for a puzzle game, have you played She Remembered Caterpillars? A charming game with a quirky aesthetic, it offers a fantastic challenge and a moving story. Otherwise, come and hang out in the Nindie Nexus Discord. We’d love to have you! And, as always, don’t forget to follow us on Twitter; you can find me here.