Attractorache is a slider-puzzle game.
At-a-glance
(Adult) Content?
No.
Censorship?
Not applicable.
Hours of Game-play?
Two or three hours.
Modding Support?
No.
Patch Available?
No, not necessary.
Foreword
I originally published a review for Attractorache on May 19th, 2019. I have updated that review, to reflect my thoughts on this game as of June, 2020. When I first wrote a review for this game, I had a highly positive opinion towards this game. While I don’t fully disrecommend it, my opinion has significantly waned towards this title. It’s been over a year since I first played this game, and since then I’ve played many games that I’d recommend over Attractorache. If this title featured adult-content and functional gallery, I would have likely maintained a positive review towards this game. Unfortunately, this title has not aged well, and I think it would only appeal to very niche set of indie-gamers.
Before I played this game, I was new to slider-puzzles, and I don’t reckon I ever solved one before. After playing this game, I took with me slider-skills that would serve me for months (and probably years) to come. Attractorache is my foundation of slider-puzzle knowledge. I don’t like slider-puzzles, but they are a staple of the adult-genre. If it wasn’t for my low expectations of 2019, I may have never learned how to slide properly.
. . . and yes! This is a game you can play one-handed!
Gameplay
. . . in a nutshell
Read my article on slider-puzzles.
out the shell. . .
The first few stages are bare-basic three-by-three slider-puzzles. Every two or three stages after them comes with a new gimmick to make your life more miserable; the “fog”, obscures random pieces of the puzzle; similarly inconvient is the mechanic that freezes pieces in place, not to be unfrozen until you spam “click” to dislodge them; and there is the “displacement” mechanic, which switches the images on two different playing pieces. Displacement changes the image, but not the placement of affected pieces.
With that in mind, solving a displacement puzzle is a coin-flip.
If any of those gimmicks sound like a bad time to you, it gets worse. As the number of pieces in each puzzle increases, so do the gimmicks. Gimmicks stack, and if you want any luck in beating this game you’d better know how to slide your sliders like a pro. Now, the gimmicks aren’t that bad, and I truly appreciated the variety this game offered. What I didn’t appreciate was a string of unholy stages.
After watching the computer disassemble a puzzle, you must reassemble it in reverse.
Oh. My. Gosh. These stages are not fun. Thankfully, it’s not too hard to cheat with some screenshots. When users are encouraged to use third-party software to effectively cheat, you have a bad mechanic. These stages should not exist, or should provide a buffer for human error (such as a “damage” system allowing for a limited number of mistakes).
Sometimes the “displacement” gimmick glitches, causing displaced pieces to become “stuck”. When this happens, you have no choice but to reset the stage and start anew. Naturally, I found this to be annoying.
Story
To my surprise, there is a story to this game. It’s not often that slider-puzzles come packaged with lore.
Three girls are trapped in space, held against their will by beasts. To free them, the traps must be defused through a series of slider-puzzle games. How the girls are trapped, and what puzzle games have to do with their entrapment is unclear.
But hey, it was more story than 90% of the slider-market at 2019.
Visuals
The titlemenu and overall visual elements were pleasant. Despite the generous use of pre-made assets, I liked what I saw. From “Settings”, you may adjust audio and display preferences. There is no gallery to review unlocked CGs; rather, to save CGs you must take “snapshots” of them in-game, and save them directly to your PC. As this game’s CGs are animated, this system does not provide an original representation that a gallery would otherwise provide.
Verdict
I don’t recommend this title. The gameplay isn’t bad, if you love slider-puzzles and there’s interesting mechanics (which set this title apart from the competition). But it’s otherwise a very bland asset-flip, with a non-existent gallery and lack of adult-content.
