Quell Memento Review

The Quell series from Fallen Tree Games gets its third entry with the freshly-released Quell: Memento, published by Bulkypix. The story is that players are solving puzzles to restore the memory of an old man, but it's really all just set dressing for the dozens of puzzles that are set to test players' brains. Players slide bubbles around each level, trying to complete the given objective, whether it be to light up all the blocks as one color, to collect all of a certain item, or one of a myriad other objectives.

Those looking for a challenge will enjoy that there's a wide variety of puzzles here, even though they all exist in that same sliding puzzle mechanic. It means that players don't really know what to expect next, especially as the game starts to mix the different elements together, and adds in extra wrinkles like power switches that turn the lighted blocks on and off when hit. Velocity matters: breakable items need to be hit with force in order to actually break them, which makes sense.

When multiple bubbles get involved, it can be a bit tricky because it might not be apparent while swiping to control a bubble that there's actually another bubble there. Pay attention. Thankfully, it's trivially quick to just restart a level, which is quite welcome in a puzzle game. Seriously, every puzzle game ever: restarting should be instantaneous as it is in Quell: Memento. There's little excuse for it. Oh, and the game supports iCloud. Yes, that's still a thing!

The levels come with multiple forms of replay value: there's not only the quest to complete a level in the minimum number of moves, but also to find the hidden purple gems in each level. They usually involve breaking blocks that don't have any relevance to the actual objective, so they encourage additional exploration. Oh, and there's 144 levels in total to play, so there's something here for everyone.

Quell Memento is one of the better sliding puzzle games out there on the App Store. It's varied and lengthy enough to be well worth a purchase for puzzle fans.