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Here's one for the lovers of puzzle games, CompliKATed [Steam, Official Site] is on Linux and ready to fry your brain. It certainly gave my brain a good workout.

Disclosure: Key provided by the developer.

You are Julius, a bipedal fox who lives in an "allegorical computer" and you're trying to escape corrupted memory zones by collecting QBITS. To do so, you will travel through the level, carefully moving "Round-O-Trons" ensuring they don't block your path. You will also need to overcome laser gates and other roadblocks along the way.

It's an odd game, but I do quite like the idea of it. Especially as there's no long tutorial, you're learning it as you progress thanks to the instructions being within the actual level at various points.

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It's difficult, that's for sure. While the basics are very easy to understand, getting a good idea in your head of the path you wish to follow can be quite tricky. It can be quite easy to end up blocked, or crushed by those bloody Round-O-Trons. The amount of times I've tried to skillfully move around them, to collect those precious QBITS I need to exit the level, only to misjudge which ones will fall and get crushed—I won't admit how many times I've messed that up. Even the QBITS will fall on you and make you fail, there's a lot to watch out for.

What makes it more difficult, is that you're also on a timer. So you're managing time, overcoming the maze of each level, recovering enough QBITS to actually exit and also finding where the exit actually is. There's a surprising amount of thinking involved in these tightly-packed levels. One false move and you may have blocked your escape, luckily you can find in-level save points to rewind back a bit.

Gathering every single QBIT on a level is extremely difficult from what I've found, luckily you don't need to collect all of them, that's a task for the most talented minds. As you walk around, you will notice your little flashing tail. Once it's green from collecting enough, the exit is available. I thought that was a very nice touch, even if I did forget about it for half an hour whilst I repeatedly failed to grab all the QBITS on a level.

It's certainly not much to look at, but it's a very made well puzzle game. The Linux version is flawless as far as I can see and certainly worth the money in my opinion. I'm currently stuck, but I'm enjoying the challenge.

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9 comments

christooss Nov 22, 2017
No mentions of this being a Supaplex clone?
Liam Dawe Nov 22, 2017
Quoting: christoossNo mentions of this being a Supaplex clone?
As I'm sure you can understand, I'm not familiar with every game ever made :)

In this case, I hadn't heard of it. Seems that's a game I missed on my old Amiga.
darkos Nov 22, 2017
Quoting: christoossNo mentions of this being a Supaplex clone?

It's a combination of Supaplex with logic gates. You have to collect floppies contains AND, OR, NAND, XOR, etc and upload them into terminals to open/close circuits. There's a lot of extra Supaplex computer electronic thingamajiggies: sensors, lasers, timers, chargers, signal generators. It's also equally annoying like Supaplex ;)
Al3s Nov 22, 2017
Well, Supaplex was a pretty popular game back in the day, and it had a few clones already. It could be said that game started a whole genre .
ramax Nov 22, 2017
By the way, there is a great game Rocks'n'Diamonds on Linux for free and Supaplex is one of modes (it contains also other classic games Boulder Dash, Emerald Mine or Sokoban).
darkos Nov 22, 2017
Quoting: ramaxBy the way, there is a great game Rocks'n'Diamonds on Linux for free and Supaplex is one of modes (it contains also other classic games Boulder Dash, Emerald Mine or Sokoban).

The boulder & collectible tradition started I think with Repton in the '80s.
tuubi Nov 22, 2017
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Quoting: christoossNo mentions of this being a Supaplex clone?
Ahhh... Supaplex. I spent a good while trying to remember the game this reminds me of.

I don't think this is a game for me. I like puzzle games, but timers kill the fun.
darkos Nov 22, 2017
Quoting: tuubi
Quoting: christoossNo mentions of this being a Supaplex clone?
Ahhh... Supaplex. I spent a good while trying to remember the game this reminds me of.

I don't think this is a game for me. I like puzzle games, but timers kill the fun.

Timer doesn't stop the level, you just get a score star less. Speaking of Supaplex, I've watched almost all youtube videos and got mesmerised by the ballet of skilful players. I've often wondered how many hours they had to put in order to get to this level of mastery, to be able to continuously play from start to end. So that's why there's a timer, but not a game-blocking one. For people who want to subdue the game, to master it.
Personally, I am not a fan of timed actions, either. I'd rather keep tinkering at my own pace ^_^
darkos Nov 22, 2017
Quoting: liamdawe
Quoting: christoossNo mentions of this being a Supaplex clone?
As I'm sure you can understand, I'm not familiar with every game ever made :)

In this case, I hadn't heard of it. Seems that's a game I missed on my old Amiga.

Funny coincidence you mentioned that. It's been bugging me forever. It's this odd thing with Supaplex... that sort of almost perfect 50% ratio of love-hate, fame/obscurity (and, my guess, this happened to precursors, too). All the people I've spoken to, so far, either never heard of it, either know it's famous.
And the ratio also applies to reaction, some people can't get enough of it, some others can't stand it. Can anyone please help me shed some light, what makes this tick?


Last edited by darkos on 22 November 2017 at 10:58 pm UTC
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