The gameplay for Monument Valley revolves around manipulating the environment in order to let your character proceed to the next level. It's similar to Fez in that it's obviously inspired by Escher paintings, requiring you to manipulate "impossible" architecture.
Monument Valley allows for offline gameplay, meaning that the user does not need an internet connection to play once the game has been downloaded onto his/her device.
Gorogoa feels more like a picture book than a game, containing many colorful hand-drawn stills. From interiors of houses, to foggy cityscapes, to even parks decorated by statues, there's just so much detail everywhere, making your journey through the world of Gorogoa much more enticing.
Your goal is to create the path for a boy's journey by moving, zooming, connecting, and superimposing pictures on a 2x2 grid.
For example, in a picture where the boy stands inside a closet, you can overlap the doorway with the picture of a rooftop exit, allowing the boy to step outside on the roof.
It's simple but creative puzzle mechanic, which let's you feel like a reality-bending wizard, making it a really enjoyable experience.
Instead of using text and dialogue to convey the story, Gorogoa uses moving pictures to show a boy's journey to meet a godly being. Each picture contains various nuances such as paintings, statues, and symbols that shed light on the story. This gives hints about the game's world and even manages to touch upon themes of religion and spirituality. Gorogoa is the prime example when a single picture tells more than a thousand words.
A single playthrough will last you a little under 2 hours, which might feel even shorter because of how captivating the game is. There are no hidden bonuses or anything else but the artistic value to make you replay this game.
Quell+ takes the extra step to have a very polished presentation. First there are no loading screen, so all menus and levels move along smoothly and have zero wait times in any transition. Second is that there is a very artistic design around each level where in a user navigates menus that are presented as a story one must reveal. The overworld is presented as a bookshelf that contains different years as shelves, each shelf has a selection of levels that have an certain theme, changing with each year selected. Overall it is a unique representation that shows a lot of polish over other casual puzzle games.
Though the basis of the game is simple enough, collect all fragments in a level with as little moves as possible, there is quite a bit of good level design that uses a few different elements to make the gameplay challenging. Things like being able to teleport across the board or blocks that appear to block your path once passed over make each level more challenging than the last due to smart level design.
Once the game is beaten and all puzzles are solved there is not much reason to revisit the game as there is nothing else left to do, so sadly there is not much replayability once the game is completed.
Users can take as much time as they like to solve puzzles, so there is no stress as to how or when they are solved. Couple this with the use of ambient music and it is a very low key game that allows for anyone to enjoy the experience stress free.
Objects in the game put HD textures to use quite well which makes all of the objects look very real and then the lighting system used (which is the main mechanic of the game) to create the shadows on the wall behave as they would in the real world. The game is a pleasure to look at and interact with due to the high level of polish to the graphics and lighting system.
The goal of the game is to find a way for the protagonists to evade the police agents, and to do that you must rearrange the animated comic book panels. Some stay in place, some can be moved, and some only flip around their axis. Every move means the main character's behavior changes, and so the action in one panel may be entirely different depending on what comes immediately before/after it.
The game starts out with an easy "switch two panels" scene, and it gradually gets more difficult as the game progresses. However, though you may have to think longer (or work through using a trial and error method) in some scenes, it never gets irritatingly difficult. There is no need to start the whole game over if you get caught, only the current scene.
Physics play a big role in Osmos where objects have their own gravity and the player needs to adjust and count for how their orb will be effected by their gravity and how to take advantage of it. By using an objects gravity to pull in ones orb they will use less fuel (bubbles) which is a limited resource required for movement.
Osmos has nailed touch controls as the game is completely based around them wherein players touch on their orb in order to have it blast out bubbles in the opposite direction in order to propel oneself in the directions they need to go.