A brilliant puzzle that burns brightly.
Due to the stressors in the world we live in, I often go to video games to relax and escape. This is a falling block puzzle game on his Switch two years after his debut on PC. With a simple yet challenging twist on a puzzle game, the out-of-this-world, zen-like presentation offers great fun, quick-thinking brain teasers, and salvation in tough times. I was. It only offers high score tracking and a handful of variant modes and songs, but what you have here is very strong and if you’re just looking for a puzzle game to zone out in the struggle of the world, Mixolumia is incredible.
The aforementioned twist is almost a literal twist. The board ends diagonally instead of neatly on the flat side. So I can’t just explain that when you roll a falling 4-block square, it lands neatly. You have to consider where it will fall and how the individual blocks will cascade around the board due to gravity. It takes a little getting used to, but once I clicked through it, I started rearranging the plan and plot. There is chaos in the play area with how the blocks fall, and the music changes as you play.
Much like Mizuguchi games like Lumines and Tetris Effect, music influences the playing experience in Mixolumia. As you play, you unlock several different songs that evolve and build as you clear blocks and speed up gameplay. It contains only a few songs (the publisher says more will be added), but it’s all puzzle game banger. This ties into my main gripe with Mixolumia. Not much. There are several different modes, from frictionless relaxation to speeded-up brain-bending rage, to different color palette customization options. I appreciate the various accessibility features, both in difficulty and visuals, but aside from tweaking scores across modes, there isn’t much that holds me back. I’m sure it will expand further in the future.
