SokoMage

I am an absolute sucker for both pixel art and puzzle games. If you waved a boxed copy of Piczle Cross in front of me whilst my shed was on fire, my garden would be full of smouldering ashes in no time. In a more realistic turn of events, when Afil Games reached out to us to cover SokoMage, I virtually vaulted to the head of the queue and promptly downloaded this cute pixel art heavy puzzler.

SokoMage found its home on Steam and PlayStation when it was released last year, but now finds a new home on Xbox. The cute top-down puzzler has now made its way over to Xbox, where a new audience has opened up for the budding indie studio. SokoMage plonks you in the shoes of a wizard who has managed to get himself trapped in a labyrinth. With only his wand and some plucky spirit, he’s got to find his way out of the maze by shooting blocks across the screen in order to reach a huge crystal that is waiting to take him to the next stage.

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At A Glance

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Each level in SokoMage tasks you with filling holes with moveable blocks so that you can bridge any gaps and collect the gigantic crystal that waits for you. It’s a simple premise but throughout 30 levels, things do get progressively tougher. Things start out relatively simply, as you knock a glassy object around a level with only bushes blocking your path. With a swift push of the button, our wizardy-chap will swing his wand and cut down the obstacle in the way. Another swish of his magical stick in front of our moveable stone will send it careening until it either hits another wall or falls down a hole. As you move through the maze, you’ll be introduced to directional arrows that change the direction of the block, along with pulsating red ‘X’s that stop the item in its tracks. I found the game had a gentle rhythm as it introduced each element, with each obstacle coming at me at about the right time in the game. A particular favourite was the directional panels, which spun my rock in various directions and reminded me of Team Rocket’s hideout in Pokemon Blue.

The stages in SokoMage are grouped into three distinct areas, Forest, Desert and Ice. Each has its own look, with deep greens filling up the screen for the forest, whereas the ice level extruded a pale chilling coldness. The pixel art graphics were utterly charming and I couldn’t help but feel that SokoMage was a homage to mid-90s gaming. That aesthetic is topped off by a cheery chiptune soundtrack that may be short but punctuates our lil’ wizards adventure really nicely as he goes about escaping the maze.

With the presentation and the (albeit limited) soundtrack, SokoMage has a lot going for it. Unfortunately, as the game moves forward, some problems do occur, and they’re the type of things that limit how much praise I can heap on the game. As delightful as the soundtrack is, it is only as varied as the limited level themes, in that you have three tracks that loop every half-minute or so. Early on this isn’t a problem as each level is quite short, but in SokoMage’s later stages, the music gets repetitive to the point I almost muted TV. The reason why I didn’t cut the sound is that by the time I reached for the remote, the game was done. There’s sadly no way to dress up the fact that 30 levels lasted around an hour or so, which is a real shame. I was enjoying the challenge, with some of the levels giving me a real run for my money, but those were few and far between in the grand scheme of things. 

There isn’t a lot to SokoMage and the levels are over far too quickly. It reminds me of the games that get churned out specifically for achievement hunters rather than having any kind of substance, which is a shame because what is contained in SokoMage is somewhat different in that respect. The puzzles get trickier, particularly as the game expects objects to be shuffled between screens and the introduction of multiple solutions lead to a few head-scratching moments. SokoMage is a super short experience that does delight but is over far too quickly and offers no incentive to replay it once you’ve cleared the game.

In the interest of full disclosure, VGamingNews was provided with a copy of the game in order to conduct this review.

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