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It's taken me far too long to get around to this

Relik is a puzzle game that, despite being a little lacking in breadth, is still quite entertaining. It's got nice visuals, and is as simple as it needs to be, at least when it comes to the layout.
The "Relik" is the name given to each cube you solve, and each cube has 4 puzzles, which as mentioned can be a bit limiting for the gameplay. These puzzles are Maze, Mimic, Runes and Sequence. If you've got good memory, you'll be great at it. I have pretty good memory, and the first few rounds of Reliks were pretty easy. But it does test you. The puzzles start off very easy, and the better you do, the harder it gets.
You get points towards your profile after solving each Relik, and that gives you a place in an overall leaderboard. So, if you're competitive, it gives you an extra aim along with the puzzle solving. Also, at the end of each Relik, is a set of six cards which you can choose two of, and you get benefits. That could be gems, profile points, or a boost in difficulty to any of the puzzles on the Relik. Each Relik is levelled, as are the puzzles on it, so you could have a level 2 Maze and a level 10 Mimic on the same Relik if your Mimic has been boosted a lot more than the others. What you can also gain from the cards are parts of a Theme. Get 4 cards and you unlock a theme. You can buy them with gems by converting the gems to points, but it takes quite a lot to buy them so getting the cards is the easier way, if you're willing to play enough games to get there.
There are in-game purchases of gems and points, as there are with any free game, but you can get exactly the same things with game points, there is nothing exclusive to buy with money. Other items you can get are clocks, which extends the time you have to complete a Relik if you need it, and you might when it gets to the harder levels. I believe you can also get a powerup that allows you to flip more than 2 cards at the end of a Relik, increasing your chance to get points or unlock a Theme.
All the challenges are timed, too, so if you want to test yourself on how fast you can solve them then go for it. You also get more points the faster you solve them.

The downfalls of the game lie in quantity of content. You can only solve 8 Reliks every 14 hours so you do have to wait after finishing them for it to reset. And, as said before, there are only 4 puzzles. Initially I thought 6 sides should mean 6 puzzles but because the Maze puzzle can be spread over 3 sides of the cube it cuts out any chance of more puzzles.
But on the other hand, the game has a lot of upsides. It gives you things to work towards, competitive placement, points and Themes, which hold off the chance that the game will go stale too fast. It's nice and simple, visually appealing, grows in difficulty to your skill level for an added challenge, and the background ambiance is relaxing too, which makes no difference when you're raging at that Mimic you totally forgot...

All in all, good game. Always a benefit that it's free. To add to that, it's still in Early Access on Steam, so it may get some improvements in time. Runs perfectly and is a good bit of entertainment and mental challenge. 6/10


Steam Curator: https://store.steampowered.com/curator/31832786/

Why was this game re-rated? Find out here: https://youtu.be/9Z71GhZUiHE