Waking Violet

Review

Solve puzzles, use spells and rewind time all to aid you in escaping from the dream you’re trapped in.

Waking Violet is a top-down puzzle game from Marco Mastropaolo / MixedBag Srl where you use spells and a rewind time mechanism (which will be used quite readily) to navigate through complex levels. You play as Violet, a shy teen, who is trapped within a dream from which she just cannot awake. To escape from this dream, you’ll have to solve the puzzles on each of the forty-two levels. There are other obstacles which will also hinder your progress, like enemies.

To solve the puzzles, you’ll have to move blocks to create bridges, or to place them on switches that open a gateway.  You can also clone yourself and use other magic spells, like fire and ice. When using magic, you’ll need to collect mana, which can be found in bottles throughout the levels, although getting them can be tricky at times and you’ll only have a certain amount, so use it wisely. Fire will destroy any blocks or enemies in your path. Freeze will allow you to freeze a clone or an enemy into an ice cube, so that you can manoeuvre them to where they are needed, like using them as a bridge to cross water. You can also clone yourself as many times as you’d like if you have enough mana to do so, and you’ll certainly need them to get through some of the puzzles. You’ll discover additional spells as you move through the game.

On some of the levels you’ll come across ice floors, where you’ll slide along until you hit either an obstacle or the edge of the level. These ice floors can be very tricky and will cause you to really think about how to proceed. When you start a level, the enemies are motionless, so you can get around them with ease.  But on each level, you must reach an alarm clock as one of the objectives; when this happens, enemies will wake up and add to your troubles.

Some enemies can only move within a certain range, like just going up and down a few squares once you’ve collected the alarm clock. Others will hunt you down; you can’t out-run them, so make sure you’re prepared!  As soon as you collect the alarm clock it will open a portal, which is your ticket out of that level.  Block paths, freeze or trap the enemies; anything you can do so you can reach the portal and escape!

You will die and make mistakes as you tackle obstacles in your way, but luckily you can rewind time, so you can rectify any mistakes made. If you find that doing it one way isn’t working, you can go back and try another route.

Options consists of Language, Music On/Off, Resolution, Vibration and Controls. There are no options to remap the keyboard or gamepad.  I couldn’t use my Xbox pad to play the game; I’m not sure if it’s on its way out or the game just wasn’t picking it up, so I played using just the keyboard, which wasn’t a problem (mouse isn’t needed). The graphics are nicely hand-drawn within own unique style, and the music is rather pleasant.

Review written by Piston Smashed™ for Zeepond.com!