A funny thing about me is that, while I spend hours doing word search puzzles every day, I’ve never been a fan of puzzle games. Well, for the most part. There were some that I played and liked, such as Goof Troop and Hue, but I usually pass on them and am also admittedly not very good at the genre. There’s so many of them, and my interest level isn’t high.
For whatever reason, I decided to request a review code for a puzzle game called Sizeable, which appeared on a site I was browsing. I hadn’t heard of it before, but it sounded interesting and caught my eye despite not being from a genre I don’t really enjoy. I guess I thought I could figure out its simplistic puzzles.
Seemingly developed by one person, Sizeable is a game that apparently came out for PC in 2021. Now, several years later, it’s available on console, including on XBOX Series X, which is where I played it. Over that time, it has received downloadable content and community updates, which add new stages and themed holiday content, and all of that is included herein. In fact, the menu was Halloween themed, including having a special, pumpkin and darkness heavy puzzle to complete.
The general concept behind Sizeable is that it’s a game wherein the player manipulates the sizes of different things within each puzzle. It’s that simple, but it works incredibly well, creating a game that makes you think, but is never overly obtuse, punishing or frustrating. I never got mad at the game, or got stuck long enough to get that way, although I will admit that I used a few video guides for individual levels. I’m not going to lie and say that I didn’t get stuck or look for any help.
All of the nearly forty different puzzles within this ‘complete’ version of the game are unique, and some are even themed. This becomes more common in the themed DLC and community content updates, though. Regardless, players can expect a very varied and interesting assortment of puzzles, which will likely make them smile and will also provide simplistic but thought provoking enjoyment.
One puzzle will send the player under the sea, where sunken treasure and giant whales live. Another will send you into space, where travelling through portals will reveal that there are three different stages to the puzzle. Meanwhile, there are others involving carts, floating airships, changing seasons and both sun and moon phases. Changing one thing in a puzzle can affect something else, so you must be smart about it. Thankfully, there is a reset option, but it’s not that necessary, since things can be put back into place.
The controls, and idea behind the game, are confusing at first. However, I got the hang of it pretty quickly. The very simplistic and artistic menus, which don’t really feature any text, can be confusing and a pain to use, but they tell you enough during the first tutorial puzzle.
You see, the goal is to rotate the puzzle and move a cursor around it in order to find things that may be hidden, and — most importantly — things that can be made bigger and smaller, or simply interacted with. The idea is that you must interact with the right things, and sometimes in the right order, in order to find three different pillars. Then, once those pillars are found, they can be placed in spots around the puzzle to complete it.
It’s hard to perfectly explain this game, but it becomes very intuitive, and makes sense while playing it. The puzzles do become more involved and complex, but few are difficult or overly complicated. There are some, though, with seasons that change, fires that alter the lighting and environment, darkness one must use a lantern to get through, and pipes that must be put together in order to roll a ball through them.
At times, it can be hard to tell what the last step is, and I did have to look at video guides. For instance, there was one puzzle where I had to extend the catwalk of a floating ship, but didn’t know. In actuality, there were occasions (maybe two or three) where I restarted puzzles, did the same things as before, and was able to get through them. It seemed like a couple of the mechanics didn’t work as intended, but only at first. It wasn’t like it took long to restart and redo everything.
This is a game that was made for PC, and a mouse and keyboard control system. As such, it uses a cursor to select, and (apparently) even mouse wheels or similar to make things bigger or shrink then. On console, we are forced to use a controller. In the past, playing PC games on console (like StarCraft on N64) wasn’t the easiest or most intuitive thing. However, we have come a long way, and this isn’t a complex game. The controller based controls, which do include a cursor, and use the triggers and shoulder buttons for spinning the small, contained puzzles and resizing things, works well. However, it is possible to miss things that can be interacted with, especially if they are small and/or moving.
Each of the aforementioned puzzles features a hidden tortoise to find, and finding them all seems to unlock bonus levels. At least, I assume that is what is hidden behind the question mark that sits below the 6th list of levels. However, I only found about 23/38.
The best way to describe these thought provokers is that they are little dioramas that one can circle around and interact with. This creates a really interesting, and minimalistic, visual style that goes with the basic menu. Some of the puzzles are more involved and complex than others, but few are that visually busy.
While playing this game on a TV, the visuals really pop. This is a colourful title, and one that features a lot of empty space around the puzzles themselves. It’s a minimalistic approach, and one that works well and looks really good. This is a beautiful puzzle game that knows what it wants to be.
There are hints that appear at the top corner of the screen, but they can be toggled on and off. These are icons that show an image of what you need to manipulate/resize/adjust to reveal each of the pillars.
As for the music: Sizeable features a very basic visual style, and the same is true of its soundscape. It’s very serene, relaxing and fits the tone of the game, with good music that never gets in the way. It’s a good accent to the on screen puzzling.
As I said at the start of this review, I am not a fan of puzzle games and never really have been. As such, I generally do not play or review them. However, every so often, there’s a puzzle game that I end up playing and really liking. Hue was one, and Sizeable from Sander Ambroos is another. Although I didn’t think I’d understand it, or be able to finish it, after struggling with the tutorial some, I quickly fell in love with it. This is a really smart, thoughtful, intentional, stylish, minimalistic, unique and well designed puzzle game that is basic yet fantastic. I’m glad that I requested it, and played through it. It wasn’t overly long, but had a lot of varied puzzles.
This review is based on the XBOX Series X version of the game, which we were provided with.