Game Reviews

Vyde

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Vyde
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Vyde is a heist game. Vyde is a stealth game. Vyde is a puzzle game. Vyde is a game in which you are a colourful square and you move around a grid made of colourful squares avoiding guards, which are also colourful squares. (Nothing is not a colourful square.)

If you move onto a square that's similar to your colour - say, a subtle maroon to complement your bold crimson - then you're partially hidden, in that the patrolling guards won't see you until they're right on top of you.

Find a square that matches your colour, and you become invisible. Hopping between similar and matching colour tiles in time with increasingly complex guard patterns is very much the core of the game.

Scattered around the levels are coins and a briefcase. You don't need to collect these to proceed, but picking them up is necessary if you're a completist. They lend an added risk to the game, and you'll find yourself dashing out of cover to quickly grab valuables out of sight of a guard before slipping back out of sight. It's pretty exciting stuff, even if you are just a coloured square.

Grab the money and walk

I say that Vyde is a heist game - I have no idea. The story is extremely scant: there's a tall building down which you must travel without being seen whilst filling your pockets, and a variety of locations themed around office blocks, executive suites, gyms, penthouses, and so on. (All of which are represented by a grid of colourful squares, mind you.)

Some levels require sound tactical planning, while others reward quick reaction times. Many require both.

The virtual joystick works well, and the pixel-perfect movements required to succeed are never made more difficult thanks to bad controls.

But there's a ponderous slowness to your movement that often verges on infuriating - too often I found myself thinking that I could solve this puzzle with ease simply by moving a little faster.

I appreciate the design choices behind the speed of my little coloured square - that this is a game about tactical planning and clever improvisation rather than just hooning it through the levels at breakneck pace - but there's a sense of dragging a ball-and-chain behind me whenever I move.

But it's free; it's got 80 levels, ranging from straightforward to nightmarish; and it's slick and well designed. You have no excuse not to at least give it a try.

Vyde

Frustrating at times, but saved by a clever concept, smart design, and the simple fact that it's entirely free
Score
Grant Howitt
Grant Howitt
Grant Howitt likes game mechanics. It's kind of a thing with him. Born in the UK and currently living in Sydney, Australia, Grant spends most of his waking hours playing or designing games. He is unusually tall, has daft-coloured hair, and drinks more coffee than you