Creaking Bones

Premise

One Line has about as simple an underlying concept as is imaginable for a puzzle game- create a single, connected path through the tiles to complete each level. This is by no means an original idea – in fact it recently featured in one of the mini games for the much maligned Pokémon Friends.

But simple does not automatically equate to bad. The real question is how well does this game execute this core gameplay loop, and is the end result really worth the 44p sale price tag?

First Impressions

On loading the game, I thought I’d accidentally skipped the main menu as I was entered straight into the first level. This was no accident, the game’s minimalist approach also applies to the UI design. A bar in the top left of the screen includes a couple options for sound, full screen and level selection, but that’s all you get.

In this case this is just about everything you need- not every game requires long-winded explanations or tutorialising. One thing to bear in mind is that later puzzles do rely on the colour of the tiles to solve. While the design is high contrast, it’s not clear if these puzzles have been tested for colour blind users and there are no further options available.

The music is relaxed and low-key with a ‘lo-fi beats to study to’ vibe. I actively chose to listen to this music throughout the playthrough and it made a very welcome change after the nightmare-fuel circus loop from Tomato Jones in my last review.

Gameplay

There are 50 levels available, all of which only require the WASD keys to move and R to restart quickly. This is a very useful option, as there’s often a clear end point for each level and that makes it easy to spot where you’ve gone wrong and need to try a new path.

Later levels introduce some additional game mechanics including direction arrows, keys and locks, and portals to navigate. Each new element is introduced with a few easy levels before ramping up the difficulty, meaning there is not so much of a difficulty curve to the game as there are peaks and valleys. This can be a welcome break though, getting the dopamine reward of completing a few easy puzzles after spending 20 minutes plus on a longer one.

That being said your mileage may vary on how difficult this game actually is. One of the Steam reviews asserts that level 47 is the hardest. While it was certainly difficult, the directional arrows limited the number of possible paths. Personally, I found the larger, more open levels with many potential routes to be trickier, with level 25 taking by far the most time for me.

Conclusion

This game provides only what it needs to, no more and no less, and overall this approach works. It met my personal test of quality, which is by the end of the 50 levels I found myself wanting more.

It can be challenging without being frustrating, doesn’t waste the player’s time or feel overly pretentious (I’m looking at you The Witness). The game is still currently on sale for just 44p as of August 17th (see the price history here), but this one is probably still worth checking out at full price (admittedly that’s only 89p but still, an achievement nonetheless).