Ligo

PC

I am, as I’m sure you’re well aware, an appreciator of The Arts. Wise, handsome, and so stunningly well-informed, I have a keen eye and an even more eager nose for detecting greatness, my fervent ears listening for beauty, while my touch, balance and vestibular senses all inform that most crucial of critical sensory systems, taste. Yes, the ability to lick a game and know if it’s good or not. People, I have licked Ligo, and I can tell you it’s fantastic.

I’m just terrible at it.

Ligo is a puzzle game that requires the sort of brain of which I am dispossessed. It is a gorgeous, superbly drawn and animated, and deliciously scored piece of loveliness that will win the hearts and minds of those who embrace a Stephen’s Sausage Roll or A Monster’s Expedition with open limbs. I desperately want to be good at it, because it’s so tremendously fun to play, but I guess my mind just doesn’t bend in those directions.

Tile-based, but without making a fuss about it, you play as a delightful white creature whose only goal in life is to crush squid. What the squid have done wrong is unclear, but crushed they must be, either by smooshing them with heavy objects, or dropping onto them from a height. The trick is manipulating the climbable 2D world and its various blocks in such a way that this is possible, whether by pushing or picking up. Which only becomes more enticing when it soon starts to feature two such white creatures, who move in unison, but as soon as they meet will link together into one creature in whichever orthogonal direction they meet. Perhaps it will now be doubly tall (although still able to pick up blocks via its top or bottom half), or doubly long, with just one pair of hands but able to reach further from platforms. Then add in a third, and well, you can imagine.

Levels are set in one enormous mega-level, each section isolated on arrival, and when completed bringing colour to that area of the overworld. And the farther you progress, the more involved those levels become. They will start to sport gravity-reversing abilities, or new block types, and… well, you know how these things work. And yes, I’m absolutely being vague about this because I’ve absolutely no idea. I can’t get to them. As established, I’m rubbish at this fantastic game. I took half this information from the trailer.

So why am I reviewing it, if I’m embarrassingly incapable of playing it? Because of those super-senses, remember? Or, more sensibly, because I know a great puzzle game when I’m flailing in my attempts at getting anywhere in it. It’s the sort of game, like Baba Is You, where I can derive far more pleasure from watching people better at this sort of thing play it than I can from my own weakly flapping. However, so far, Ligo is very much buried–despite being so splendidly well made, so pretty and pleasurable to play, it’s not been picked up by the puzzling fanatics yet. Which is also to say, there are no YouTube videos of other people showing how to complete the levels on which I’m stumped.

So, yes, you could argue I’m writing this review in order to try to get someone else to make a walkthrough to help me progress, and you’d not be entirely wrong. But genuinely, that’s not my real motivation. My real motivation is recognising that this is really brilliant! This is a game deserving of widespread attention of the sorts Draknek & Friends receive for theirs. It deserves to be in their midst, rubbing shoulders with Hempuli Oy and Stephen Lavelle. I think you, a person who is good at this sort of game, are going to properly love this.

• Anthony Berleur
• Itch, Steam
• £12/$14/€14
• Official Site

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