Most of the time you know what you are getting into when you start a game. The title or the graphics gives you a sense of what you are getting into. But that is not always the case. Take Aveole from North Lab and distributed by Sometimes You. The title can be translated as the socket of a tooth, cell of a honeycomb, or a depression on part of a plant. The stark black and white graphics give little clue either.
The game starts with a white screen and the outline of a person drops from above. As your character stands up a large hamster wheels appears behind them and they jump on. There are empty boxes on the screen and random pictures. The wheel begins moving slowly as you jog in place. The wheel doesn’t gain a lot of speed, but speed bumps will appear behind you and slowly make its way around to you. Once you jump it, it disappears and waits for another to spawn. You just have to jump 6 of these without missing to win the run.
While completing a run is not difficult, trying to complete all the objectives without knowing what they are specifically is more troublesome. You have to carefully watch each icon as you go through your run to see how it reacts to what you are doing. Some challenges require you to stumble throughout, while others need you to fail or make jumps in a specific order. The goal is to complete all challenges and replace the icon with portraits.
The whole time I was playing this game I was trying to figure out what the true goal was. Are you just trying to survive and solve puzzles? Is it just a quick and easy completion or is there a deeper meaning? I think I spent more time trying to gather the meaning of the game than I did solving the puzzles. Maybe that is the meaning of it, to make you think.
Alveole is available on Xbox, Nintendo Switch, PC, and Playstation. With a price tag of about $5 it won’t break the bank, but also won’t occupy a lot of your time. The sparse, clean graphics and minimal soundtrack allow you to focus on the variety of puzzles. If you are looking for a different type of puzzle game, or a quick completion, this is one to add to your wishlist.
