This is a brilliantly conceived and executed puzzle game that I can't help but liken to the Zachtronics style of puzzle design to an extent; a simple, reasonably minimalist concept that gradually peels back more and more layers of complexity until you're dealing with some real brain-melting challenges. Unfortunately, the one place Solas 128 really fails is in its communication. It's minimalist to an absolute fault, to where it can be a minor challenge to even work out how to navigate the frontend to resume your saved game instead of deleting it or starting a new game by accident. Very much a sign of things to come.

Naturally, this extends to the puzzle design. Something a game like this desperately needs is clear introduction to new puzzle elements as they're incorporated -- you make it clear that something new is happening, then you demonstrate basic applications of it, and then you can start taking the training wheels off and integrating it into the ongoing puzzle design. Solas does somewhat introduce you to new concepts in relatively simple environments before working them into more complicated puzzle design, but the bigger issue is that you're given no indication of the fact that you're being introduced to a new mechanic in the first place. You can never be sure if you're missing an element of the current puzzle because you need to complete more of the nearby rooms first, because there's some new mechanic you don't know about yet, if you're maybe just being a bit dense at the moment, or possibly a combination of all three. Moreover, the hint system works swimmingly for some rooms and seems to outright break or mislead you in others because it, too, is extremely limited in what it has been designed to communicate. I have repeatedly had to reference video playthroughs to be able to continue, and I've rarely been disappointed at spoiling the solution for myself because nine times out of ten it leaves me shouting at my monitor, "How the ♥♥♥♥ was anyone supposed to intuit THAT for themselves?!"

Currently I'm stuck on a room that is so horrendously designed and dependent on a complex series of maneuvers involving timing-based manual dexterity that, even with the video walkthrough on hand. I've not yet been able to complete it. It looks like some sort of harebrained unintended solution one would use to solve the puzzle because they can't figure out how it's actually intended to be played... except that is, in fact, how it is required to be played, and it is egregiously bad. Which is a shame, because aside from these particular hideous and pronounced warts, it's a really well-designed experience with some masterfully crafted puzzles. And sure, I'd still recommend picking it up on a decent discount, but if the game weren't so adamant about keeping its lips pursed and expecting you to just figure it out, bro, it could've been a far, far less frustrating and no less enjoyable experience.

Darn, I can't remember having such a negative reaction to a puzzle game so soon after starting it.

Right away the complete lack of information on how to play the game put me off. There is no text on the menu screen, only those obscure icons that you can only understand the purpose of after you have clicked on them, and even then not always.

I'll admit that I should have read the Steam description page more closely but since I have played and enjoyed numerous mirror puzzle games I thought this would be a sure bet. I'm not too keen on puzzles that involve colours, but perhaps I could learn to like them if the game explained what I am supposed to be doing.

Perhaps there are interesting puzzle but I'm not willing to put the time into this game because the developers weren't willing to put ANY time into explaining the rules of the game to me (except for more obscure icons).

It's not bad but it's not great either.

Some levels are buggy, if you do something wrong in a level you can't undo anymore

Game is really good. Extremely good. I love everything about it, from the music to the aesthetic to the puzzles themselves. I'm just not smart enough for it.

The hint system did a good job of helping me through some of the puzzles I was looking at wrong and got stuck on in the early/mid game.

The hint system is fully disabled in the late game and that's why I can't recommend it.

I don't know... The game was fun at the beginning but got annoying real fast, as a software dev logic is not my problem, unexplained and obfuscated logic is! This game is like reading code with var names like v1, v2, v3 and f1, f2, f3 for functions, yeah I know, you can handle code this way but it's not fun, it's annoying! Some mirrors can reflect on both sides, some can't? The splitters look almost identical which was confusing. The final straw was the stupid switches, that made me Alt+F4 real fast. Yeah, some could argument you can do trial and error to figure things out, but not me, not in logic games (it's more puzzle than logic)! Don't get me wrong I like figuring stuff out on my own but not in this case. The other thing that bugged me was the glow of the level walls.