An experimental puzzle game that drops you in with no context, the first ten minutes of Alveole are quite interesting. You are confronted with a human stuck in a wheel and just seven moves to make before the game resets. You’ll be pressing buttons, seeing what happens and accidently triggering trophies and endings.
Whilst Alveole is extremely short, that initial discovery phase is quite interesting but almost the entire game revolves around a pattern. Your human stuck in the wheel can start running and when it does you’ll get up to seven obstacles to jump over. Do you jump or do you stumble? Switching up all the different variants – which you are given clues on by little picture on the top of the screen – will trigger endings. These endings are photos of your human having a life moment. Collect all the photos and you’ve completed the game.
I quite like the concept and I enjoy arty games that make comment on life in unusual ways but I think the scope for Alveole is a little too narrow. I wanted more about the comments on life and more types of interactions to make use of its symbolism. Instead, I found myself pressing X on my ps4 controller a few times to try patterns and get an ending. It just didn’t gel as well as I’d hoped it would after those initial discovery minutes.
Fans of minimalism, experimental puzzles may find something here and its a cheap experience for 79p on Steam (more on console though). Just don’t expect to return back to it and have a life changing thought. It’ll also be over in about 45 minutes max.
Review copy provided by publisher.
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