Alveole | Nintendo Switch Review
Updated: Nov 19, 2021
Alveole is a minimalistic puzzle game which originated from a small experimental project, developed by Emil Ismaylov and Denis Petrov and published by Sometimes You. For the purposes of this review, I was playing Alveole on the Nintendo Switch in docked mode. It is also available on Windows PC, PlayStation, and XBox.
Regarding a storyline, there is nothing much that can be said about this game. You control a character in a hamster wheel and you will come across seven obstacles. How you react to these obstacles will unlock a photo for you to complete your collection, so this is where the puzzle element comes into play. As you can see below, there are 16 photos to be unlocked in total. Once these are all unlocked, the game is completed.
Without giving too much away, pay attention to the images around the hamster wheel, as they will give you some hints on how to solve the puzzles. One or two are quite obvious while others can be tricky. Then there is one or two which make no rational sense on how it could be known how to solve it. For one I ended up pressing almost every button on my control pad as I was in docked mode, which may be a lot more straightforward on handheld mode. The mechanics are also very basic and repetitious so you may become a bit bored by this game very quickly. Unless you are looking to platinum the game, which on the Nintendo Switch is not possible as there are no trophies to collect, you may want to play it on other platforms where you are rewarded for time invested.
That being said, the animations are cute and the music is nice and chilled. There is not much exertion involved as you only need to use one or two buttons throughout, so it is suitable for all levels of player. There is also a warning for people who are photosensitive. There is a little animation at the end when the game is completed. So this game may be recommended to anyone looking for a nice chilled game while having a cup of coffee, instead of doing crosswords or sudoku in the local newspaper.
Alveole was unfortunately not my cup of tea. Although I love puzzle games, this game was a bit too boring and repetitive for me, and one or two of the puzzles made no sense as to how to solve them. The images collected also did not appear to correlate with each other, leaving the sense of time wasted, as I still do not know what the purpose of this game was. The game can be completed in less than an hour, and I was sadly feeling less than satisfied. If you were to get this game, I would recommend getting it on a platform with a trophy system, such as Windows PC or PlayStation.
Tina's Rating: 2 out of 5.
For more information on Alveole please use the following links...
Denis Petrov | Emil Ismaylov - Developer
Sometimes You - Publisher | YouTube | Twitter | Website
Many thanks to Sometimes You and Keymailer for the Review Key.
Alveole | Steam Store | PlayStation Store | XBox Live | Nintendo eShop
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