Despite accruing a few faults with their railway line management puzzle game Railway Islands – Puzzle, Rising Moon Games are back with another minimalistic puzzler focusing on a different mode of transportation. So, get ready to plot a safe path for buses to travel on the roads across a large archipelago this time in Busway Islands – Puzzle.
Should you hop on for a ride in Busway Islands – Puzzle, or will you be desperately wanting to get off at the first available stop?
Busway Islands is a minimalistic puzzle game that’s essentially about creating circuits to enable safe and efficient transportation routes for passengers living on islands. While your main role sees you organising the roads for buses, there are double duties going on here as you also have to factor in the trains on occasion. Both the roads and rail tracks are all jumbled up however, leaving you to sort out the mess to ensure the buses and trains can reach their exit points.
There are 35 levels in total, which equates to the same number of islands requiring logistical aid. Each moveable piece on an island is represented by a square tile that can be swapped with any other moveable tiles. They can also be rotated in order to line up with the neighbouring tiles if necessary. Much like a jigsaw, you have to put all of the pieces in the correct positions for the route to be complete, before signalling the transport to begin their journeys. Any mistakes will lead to potential crashes between vehicles or the endless looping of the buses, requiring you to go back to the drawing board.
Even though Busway Islands – Puzzle doesn’t hold your hand, the concept is easy to grasp and the early stages are straightforward enough to solve. You only have to worry about connecting straight roads and corners for the little yellow bus to traverse. In a bid to increase the complexity, there are a handful of mechanics and ideas introduced, to varying success. The railway tracks are swiftly brought in, along with level crossings to try and avoid any collisions with the bus. An additional bus, as well as extra bus stops to pass by, are also on the agenda, which certainly increases the difficulty a tad.
Unfortunately, it kind of goes all-in too soon, with the likes of T-junctions, crossroads, bridges, sloped roads and tracks entering the fray before reaching the halfway point of the whole game. So, while these bring interesting conundrums to the table initially, the novelty soon wears thin and it runs out of steam. Furthermore, the overall toughness becomes erratic as it runs out of ways to challenge you.
In one instance, you’ll grind through a puzzle that’s heavy on the number of tiles presented, but then the next one is a breeze due to being smaller in size and bereft of anything difficult. Neither situation is fun to solve. Some of the mechanics are seriously underutilised too, such as the traffic lights to stop buses crashing into each other, which are barely used. The level crossing signals appear frequently and are a waste of time, because the limited number of positions in which they can be placed make it blatantly obvious where to put them.
To add to the negativity, the navigation and manoeuvring of tiles is a real pain from the outset. That’s as a result of the birds-eye camera view. You can zoom in and out, as well as pan around the island, but getting a clear picture of the islands would be better with a pure top-down option and a side-on viewpoint. Currently, it’s easy to miss tiles hidden behind those elevated on a platform and it’s actually quite hard to see where tiles with a gradient must go. The camera angle is just not ideal for everything that Busway Islands wants to do and it’s frustrating.
Putting the camera issue to one side, the minimalist art style attempts to create a relaxing atmosphere to calm you down. You’ll experience all four seasons over time and witness the environments reflecting this, with autumnal and wintry designs providing the best chill vibes. I’d recommend turning off the BGM though, just because it’s really irritating and won’t help the mood.
Overall then, Busway Islands – Puzzle is a minimalistic puzzler that delivers the minimum amount of enjoyment for its nominal price tag. The circuit style puzzles are fun for a little while as new mechanics are thrown your way, but you’ll have seen everything by the halfway point and then it just feels like a chore for the few hours it’ll take to finish.
Busway Islands – Puzzle is so cheap that you might still find it worth the money, but there are many budget puzzlers that do a better job.
Take a Tranquil Trip: Busway Islands Brings Calming Puzzles to Console – https://www.thexboxhub.com/take-a-tranquil-trip-busway-islands-brings-calming-puzzles-to-console/
Buy Busway Islands – Puzzle on Xbox – https://www.xbox.com/en-GB/games/store/busway-islands-puzzle/9n9102vnzxlh
