Squingle
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About the Game
Before time there was only Squingle – and she needs your help to create the Universe!
The spiraling psychedelic puzzle – Liquid crystal levels are alive, mystical, and other-worldly, offering a unique multisensory showcase that must be seen, heard and felt to be believed. Grab the two revolving orbs and guide them through iridescent mazes that twist and turn, forming structures like DNA. Will you discover the meaning of Squingle?
Sensory Satisfaction
Relax with refreshing visuals and a 3D tactile gameplay experience only possible in VR.
Find your flow through 100 hand-crafted levels and a changing musical soundscape.Get Competitive
Compete with Steam Leaderboards and Achievements – calling all Speed Runners – and challenge your own ghost at double-speed for double satisfaction.Addictive Gameplay
Solve puzzles by switching your rotation with special orbs to find secret items, multiple paths and hidden routes, and master maneuvers around dangerous dances of obstacles.
Timing and movement are as important as puzzle solving in Squingle. Guide rotating orbs through glassy iridescent mazes, collecting objects and avoiding the edges.
Squingle can be played in short bursts or serious sessions. The consequences of making a mistake are low, which makes for a relaxing experience full of experimentation.
With rewarding visuals and sound, casual players can just play through the levels. But there’s plenty for serious gamers too with Steam Achievements and Leaderboards for maximum competition. Make sure you find all the secrets!
10/10 – “The perfect VR game.” ~ Zimtok5
“A great puzzle game.” ~ UploadVR
91% – “One of a kind.” ~ VRGameCritic
Steam User 21
Experienced on the Oculus Quest 2
You can view my review & gameplay here:
This is a trippy, psychedelic puzzle game involving revolving orbs that you have to guide through a liquid crystal maze. It starts out simple at first, but these mazes will present some interesting spatial mental ability challenges. At times I thought it was impossible to guide the spinning orb through some tight spaces, but with some perseverance I was able to complete the challenge.
There are a total of 100 puzzles. There is also a little bit of a story with some trippy cut scenes, but the focus of the game is on the puzzles and for the most part it is just a series of puzzles that slowly get more challenging as you go along. My main criticism of the game is that the maze can be difficult to see at times with some of the angles. Keep in mind, I played in mostly normal scale, but you can play in roomscale which will make the puzzles larger (and easier to see). I was able to play the game seated for the most part, but I did have to stand up a few times to better navigate the maze.
The game is running on the Unity Engine. On my RTX 3080, I was getting a steady 90 fps. While I did not experience any game- breaking bugs, I did come across one annoying bug. For whatever reason, the orb would start spinning the wrong way on its own. Unfortunately, this bug made me have to restart the puzzle each time (happened maybe 5-6 times).
You can collect green orbs or go for a speed run. Doing well will unlock the zen mode, which means you can experience your winning gameplay in first person mode and it's quite the trip. You can also challenge yourself even more and go for twice the speed. I did NOT try that.
Overall, I had fun. I thought the puzzle mechanic here was something original and creative. However, while the visuals and music were nice on some levels, on others they were forgettable. I would have liked to have seen more trippy music / visuals that are as creative as the mazes themselves.
Rate 7.5/10. Nice to see something new & original in VR.
Please note: I received a free Steam key through the Steam Curator Connect program. You can join my Steam Curator group here:
Steam User 16
"What's a Squingle?" In short, it's like a lovechild of "Cosmic Sugar" and classic maze puzzlers the likes of which Sierra and other early pioneers could only have imagined while on acid and trying to dream the universe into being.
The Good:
1. Art/Style -- The psychedelic visuals in Squingle are in a class of their own. Rich color fields pulse and writhe in the form of semi-organic maze structures, which themselves stretch and twist in colorful, liquid transparency across the playspace. The effect is brilliant and hypnotic even on an LCD based headset like the Index, and OLED only makes it even more intense if you run an original Rift, Odyssey, Vive, or Vive Pro 1.
2. Difficulty -- Squingle seems deceptively easy at first -- you move a pair of slowly rotating orbs through a maze. Not too hard, right? Depends on your preferences -- you choose your difficulty naturally and intuitively, without a traditional menu.
If all you want is to progress through the game casually and see the end, no problem, for the most part, you'll find a relaxing, gentle to moderate challenge that should be accessible to most players. (The last 2 chapters, Awaken 1 and 2, do have some teeth to them, but if you find yourself stuck, a few deaths will trigger a hint on how to proceed to the next checkpoint in the maze.) If you get frustrated, you can always skip the level to come back to later when you're de-stressed. You unlock maps an entire chapter at a time, so it's very unlikely you'll find yourself totally blocked from proceeding in the game if you get stuck on one particular maze.
But if you want to push yourself by collecting *all* the green orbs in a maze, or clear a level without taking damage, it gets harder and requires more puzzle solving, both in terms of mental skills *and* dexterity -- Squingle uses both angles to challenge the player.
If you want to make it harder still, you can aim for the fastest time, racing against other players' times on the leaderboard, or against yourself -- when you play a map, the game records a ghost of your playthrough, like a lot of classic sports racing games. And if you want to unlock a crazy, "roller-coaster ride" replay from *within* the maze, you'll need to clear it cleanly and quickly. (If you are especially prone to motion-sickness, while Squingle does provide you with a cockpit-like cage to give a visual reference point during these replays, it can be quite a trip still depending on the movements you made solving the maze. Just a heads-up to more delicate players.)
A side note for players who are especially looking for a challenge -- I personally found the difficulty to start climbing quickly in the 2.X series of maps, so if you're working through Chapter 1 and think they're too easy, give it a little longer, it's about to ramp up, and will continue to increase in difficulty as you go.
3. Replayability -- The optional competitive angle of Squingle gives it some replayability if you're the type to shoot for high scores in games.
4. Music -- The soundtrack for the game is a lovely, chilled-out synthetic ambient score, very relaxing and meditative. If you're playing with a haptic vest on, you'll get a nice gentle thump in your chest from the bass elements.
5. Accessibility -- Squingle's fully playable seated or standing, so those with limited space or limited physical mobility can still enjoy it. For best experience, I'd recommend standing, the last couple chapters are significantly easier if you can move around a bit to peek into the tunnels. Up until that point, though, I played comfortably sprawled out in my beanbag chair on the floor.
6. Runtime -- First-time playthrough for me was about 4h15m, and I ended with 35% completion in terms of orbs and petals. Felt pretty good to me -- not too short, not too long.
The Bad:
Nothing, really. The game's quite polished, and knows exactly what it wants to be. If you're not into mazes or movement puzzles, it won't be for you, end of story. But if you are, it's honest about what it is, and you'll likely enjoy it.
The Ugly:
1. Difficulty Spike -- There's a couple of levels near the end that are a bit gnarly at one point each, Awaken 1.7 (there's a hairpin turn near the end of that map that's pretty unforgiving) and Awaken 2.8 (an overlapping curl where you need to get through a hard to see area with little tolerance for error). There were a few moments of... spicy language when I got snagged on those for a while, but they're doable, so if you get stuck, take a break, stretch, and try again later when you feel like revisiting those or any other map you find especially hard to beat.
Nerd Stuff:
Played on Valve Index + Knuckles at 120hz, driven by an Intel 10900K + NVidia RTX3090. Framerate was flawless, and Index support was excellent. No issues with visual rendering, and the Knuckles bindings can accommodate players who prefer to use the Grips to grab and rotate the maze - gentle pressure to grab, and just relax your grip to let go, no need to worry about having to keep your hands wide open to avoid unwanted grabs/holds. To activate this mode, just pick "Grip" for how to grab/rotate the maze in the Options menu.
Final Thoughts:
Squingle's a beautiful, psychedelic maze-puzzler that's friendly both to casuals and competitive types, with a rich presentation and the temptation to replay to shoot for a higher score on each map, much like classic arcade games. If you're a fan of mazy movement puzzles that you can relax to, give it a shot!
Disclosure:
I helped with testing Squingle on the Index, and received a key for free.
Steam User 6
Kuru Kuru Kururin but it's VR
Seriously, if you liked Kuru Kuru Kururin on the Game Boy Advance or Gamecube, you will LOVE this game. It essentially takes that concept and brings it into a 3D space (with awesome psychedelic visuals), and it's incredible.
Steam User 7
What an absolutely outstanding game. I was honestly blown away by the ingenuity shown in the design of the puzzles. The continuous-rotation mechanic is not something I've ever seen in a videogame before and it's just remarkable to see a totally new mechanic in a puzzle game such as this. It's both original and highly intuitive, and I love that the game allows the player to figure things out for themselves, providing only gentle guidance.
Beyond the gameplay, the visuals are absolutely stunning and the story is fun and interesting. With "immersion" being the adjective so often thrown around for VR-titles I think it has slightly lost meaning. However, I would say this game is truly worthy of the descriptor. I found myself completely absorbed in the world of Squingle in a very short period of time. Oustanding
Steam User 6
Really fun and trippy VR Puzzle game!
Steam User 4
Full disclosure: I received a free copy of this game because I was a play-tester and offered feedback during its development.
Squingle is a VR game about creating the fabric of existence by navigating rotating orbs within the twists and turns of celestial intestines. Confused yet? If so, you get it.
At it’s core, Squingle follows a basic concept: You must use skill, patience and timing to navigate a pair of rotating orbs towards a goal through increasingly complex stages without touching the edges, while also attempting to collect optional bonus items along the way. More mechanics are introduced throughout the game, which I'll not spoil here, as they make for some great "Ah ha!" moments.
The visual representation of the game is very psychedelic in nature, with textures, effects and visuals that rival the most entrancing music visualizers.
Controls are very intuitive and simple. You will use your triggers to grab and move the orbs, as well as manipulate the stage itself. Both can be done at the same time, as well, allowing for players to discover and define their own style of play. You can also speed up the rotation of the orb, if you're so inclined to test your speed and shoot for the leaderboards.
Overall, Squingle is a great short session game to when you want to find your zen. There's also nothing quite like it, as it is the type of game that is only possible in VR. The only game I've ever played that even compares is an old mobile game called "Duet".
There’s enough challenge to spark that feeling of accomplishment, but not so much that you’re going to find yourself frustrated very often. There are over 100 stages, as well as gameplay modifiers to unlock, so there’s plenty to discover and come back to.
Steam User 5
A beautiful 3d vr puzzle game