PGC London 19: Push is a mix of a board game and a puzzler that pushes the right buttons

There are some games that get under your skin, and the key to that stems from their core mechanic - that idea that sits at the heart of the game and infuses everything around it with something special. When it comes to Push, that mechanic is on display from the second you read the game's name.

The build we play is early in development, but that pushing heart is still clearly on display. And it's that that makes it stand out, that makes it worth writing about even though it may be a while before it actually makes it out in a way that we can all play.

The game is a bit like a cross between Go and chequers. The aim of the game is to get two of your coloured pieces up into the top corners of the board. Your opponent is trying to do the same and fill the two bottom corners. First one to do it wins, or alternatively you can push all but one of your foe's pieces off the board.

Push as hard as you can

There's a hierarchy to the pushing - two pushes one, three push two, and so on. So if you've got three pieces in a line, you can use them to push one or two of your opponent's pieces to try and mess up their plans.

In one game it was looking grim, before I remembered that you can push counters out from the scoring squares and managed to turn what could have been a defeat into an incredibly satisfying victory. And that satisfaction would have been even greater had I been playing against another person.

Push walks the line between a puzzler, a strategy game, and something closer to a tabletop experience. It's exactly the sort of thing that you're going to have multiple matches of running at the same time, and that's going to mean you'll need concentration and good planning skills to win.

Like I say, it's going to be a while before Push comes out, but it stands as an intelligent highlight of PGC London, and we're really excited here at Pocket Gamer to see what else the game has to offer when it comes out.