2013.12: Catherine

Time took to complete: 13hours:21mins

OK, full disclosure. Let's get this out the way: 7-3, 7-4, 6-3. Those are the stages-levels I had to check a walkthrough for. I haaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaatte doing that in puzzle games and hated myself for it but as one of the comments said in one of the walkthroughs, it was either that or blowing my brains out. The game challenged me lots of times outside those stages, don't get me wrong but in those three cases I literally used all my 27 retries one time and was like "ok, i'm just not getting this". So yeah.

So the game itself is brilliant. The box moving puzzle the game revoles around is super addictive and stage after stage they give you new mechanics to think about. Amazingly all these mechanics are well thought out and extremely well balanced. They all work excellent to add fun and challenge to the stages. I have no complaints there.

Around that mechanic they wrap a relationship story that made me genuinely chuckle more than a few times and in general has a very nice adult tone and delivery to it. This part also had gameplay mechanics which takes place in a bar. Here you can talk to other people about what is going on, interact with them and have a few drinks. This was all good fun.
Another great aspect was the phone. Where you receive messages and can reply. Replying mechanic is smart where the message is broken into 2-3 lines of text and you scroll through the one you want for each line to send and this effects your relationship with whomever you are texting.

It all comes together wonderfully. From the addictive and amazingly fun puzzle game to the involving bar HUB where you truly feel like you are just hanging out at a bar with your friends, and how well the story ties those two worlds together, this is an absolutely amazing universe to take part in.

9/10.