Funktronic Labs' Nova-111 showed up as a title in the first Humble Bundle monthly I took a shot at. I'd not even heard of this one and initially assumed it just to be a quick filler title as part of the bundle.

What I got was a rather enjoyable grid/tile puzzler game. It has a mix of turn based and real time problems to solve in a slightly quirky universe where the story fall short, but the gameplay is very smooth and nicely balanced.

First, let's get the 'story' out of the way. Or rather, try to remember to read it...

There was no intro as far as I could find it, the game puts you immediately in the world. You start off in a broken down spaceship(?) of sorts on the verge of breaking apart. Moving through a tile-grid you quickly pick up 'Dr. Science' who begins to repair the craft and has you back to max health.

No issues here, but if you pay attention to the popups that appear you notice that they show up at a really bad time and it is easy to not only move on before they finish, but forget to read them. There's 111 scientists to collect, and most only have a few words to say about something inane (but charming). Dr. Science however will comment on the map/world as you traverse it. And to be honest, I missed/skipped most of it.

The dialogue is not horrible, but the message speed, message trigger, and popup placement is in such a place that I forgot to read it as I was concentrating on what was happening on the screen instead.

Why am I hear? Why are the scientists scattered around? How do I understand the animals/aliens I collect? What are these monsters? Why do things start to fall apart? I... I...

I feel like I should care about this. But even though 95% of the game is turn based I just managed to miss most of it. This does have the positive effect in that it is of such little importance to the world you can replay for higher scores and not be stopped by any of it aside from the first introductory map.

The game itself I very much enjoyed for this genre. Grid/Tile and turn based for 75% of it, and the last 25% is slow enough that you don't need twitch skills is a big plus to me. The real time elements are also done in such a way that you can retreat back to safe places to rethink the challenge

The aim of each map is to find a portal to the next one and eventually finish the game. More or less.

Along the way you can find various pickups and items. These include the 111 different scientists in the world, of which about half are easy to find and the others require some solving.

This starts with 'fake' walls that can be seen in that they don't take up a full tile space. Banging into a wall does not damage your ship, so if needed you can brute force you way to these, but they're honestly not that hard to find. The rest are found by activating parts of the map through the powerups you find later on.

Each scientist has a little quip on picking up. It's cute, though as stated above I did begin to ignore them. Kitty made me smile. Who out there does not like cats?

Along with banging into walls, you also bang into enemies to attack them. The first map introduces you to a 'Chomper'. Chomper only has 2HP and is easily dispatched while introducing you to the way attacking/defending works.

On hitting the Chomper (or skipping a turn next to it), you'll see a '!!!' alert and a pre-attack animation. If your next turn does not destroy it, or you remain in its path, then it will attack and cause damage to your ship.

As the game progresses, you have to deal with multiple enemies at once and the environment forcing you to position yourself to attack/retreat while keeping out of the path of environmental hazards. Future enemies have a larger attack range and can dash towards you or restrict your movement. Overall, it does a very good job of slowly introducing you to each one and ramping up the challenge. Never hard enough to be frustrating, but enough that you do have to take in the full screen.

To aid you in all of this, you also collect various powerups across the map.

• A Stun Bomb
• A Long (short) Range Canon
• A Phase Shifter
• A Time Stop

Each of these are also introduced to you gradually on how they work and the game will notify you when you try to use them on the first obvious conflicting encounter. This then combines with various enemy types you meet across the maps in preparation for later puzzles.

Using the bomb is done through yellow globules you collect in the map, and the rest requires 'Science' points. Science Points slowly recharge and more use-slots can be unlocked over time. While the globules are more limited.

Misusing them can easily lead to you being at a disadvantage and placed in unwinnable locations where you face certain death. This fail state restarts the current map, which is thankfully seen as checkpoints, and it does not take long to get back to where you are. With each run you find more efficient ways of completing the maps and can discover the secret areas of the level.

The four powerups are not just used against the various monsters but also assist in the map puzzles. Each one is to be used in combination with the previous ones and puzzles themselves are fairly easy to solve... Except there are those hidden secrets across the map where it may not be totally obvious.

They're not essential to completing the game, and add a nice extra challenge to those that want to complete it. Or challenge on leaderboards.

I enjoyed Nova-111. It has a nice difficulty curve of challenge and a great pacing. Graphically and musically the game is great and it plays very smoothly with little delay in movement. My complaints of story are minimal as it is a minor part of how this all plays.

In the end I was able to complete the game, managing to find about 75% of the various hidden areas/scientists. I do plan to go back and try to find the rest

It is worth noting that the game contains a level editor to allow you to create maps. Steam Workshop support is in an experimental beta, so hopefully if it is added will make it easier to share out creations.

I do recommend giving it a shot however. There's a really fun puzzle game here that is sadly lacking visibility.

Game Acquisition: Humble Monthly (April 2016)
Platform Used: Steam
Tweet Thread: 1 - 11 May 2016
PC Used: Scorptec Venom 2009 MK2

OS: Windows XP, Vista, 7 or 8
Processor: 2 Ghz or faster processor
Memory: 300 MB RAM
Graphics: 512 MB DirectX 9.0c compatible graphics card (shader model 2)
DirectX: Version 9.0c
Storage: 350 MB available space