Good game, I had fun playing it and I think it was a good use of the theme

Very unique puzzle mechanics and great idea! The theme fits perfectly!

interesting idea. Great graphics and Music and it fit the theme quite well.

Very simple to understand gameplay with lots of polish and juice. Excellent artwork, great job! Definitely fits the theme lol

The music hits hard! Love the mood and atmosphere. The gameplay and puzzles were great, but not intuitive at first! Fun little game

Couldn't help but chuckle at the dark relevance to our current times. +1
Gameplay is intuitive and the art/UI is awesome. Love how chill the music is against the tension of the situation. Simple controls and great polish!

I knew game like this was coming! Had a nice dark laugh and really enjoyed the game.

The gameplay loop is fantastic idea and very original.

Art style of this game is great and how the environment reacts to music beats is really nice detail.

Overall very polished game, nice entry!

Really cool mechanic and a great state for a game jam game too! Feels like a full blown game.
Great work

great concept, amazing use of audio, especially at the end screen. I love the stylized graphics and music.

I like the idea and the presentation is very nice, but I think the graphics make the game very difficult to play. The tiles themselves are weird to look at. It took me a while to figure out that those lines were stairs and not like a fence or something. Also, something about how tiles look makes it hard to visualize what the result of my change will be. And having to consider that the current tiles will shift along the direction I click, as well as Putin's position changing is a lot to keep track of.
I wouldn't say the game is difficult because of these issues, but I never really felt like I was being strategic, I was just spamming clicks watching Putin bounce around the map, trying to push him away from the nukes.

I think the game would work better if there were levels with solutions rather than an endless cycle of tiles. If you want the game to be endless then I think you should make it easier on the player so the game doesn't get exhausting so quickly. Maybe adding a preview of what the map will look like when you mouse over an arrow would help. That way the player can focus on thinking about what order to click the arrows in.

The music and graphics were great though. Definitely kept the game interesting through repeat sessions

Great concept and great execution on some pretty dark stuff. Helps to remember what's at stake. Thanks for making this!

The puzzle mechanics is one of the kind and it is fun to play with. Not sure if it's intentional, but the flashing background and the pulsing tiles make it difficult to look at after a while. Maybe some accessibility options would be nice.

Very nice puzzle mechanic, with a lot of nice audio and visual touches, even though I felt the constant movement a bit dizzying, which is not necessarily what you're looking for in a turn-based puzzler. It almost feels like it was written with an other theme in mind (control the environment? ;)), but it also ties in here fine. Very polished entry, congrats!

Larger maps could be a nice addition.

Nice idea with fresh mechanism! very well executed!

@skleembof
Thanks for the thorough feedback. Showing a preview on mouse over is an interesting proposal. I felt at first it would make the game too easy, but of course there's more to consider in the game than just the immediate results of a move. If we were to make the game again we'd probably at least give the tiles clearer borders, to help in visualizing what the result of a move would be.

About ready-made levels vs. endless mode - making and designing levels is of course a big time sink, it's time that we decided to spend on polishing the game this time around. And such a concept would definitely work better in a game about making a path rather than blocking it. Also, having the game be about surviving as long as possible was just too good of a fit for the theme - Moaning about the theme is a certified Ludum Dare classic, but I truly feel the theme was particularly bad this time around for how much it constrains design.

Thanks again for the thought-out comment and honest feedback.

Fun take on the theme! Well executed and polished! Tight game loop that made me replay several times. Good job, guys!

Nice puzzle game, really nice graphics. I got 58 points in standard

Oh wow, the gameplay was super unique! I also enjoy how the theme tied in to the artwork and gameplay. Nicely done!

Tied for highest rated game all round for me. High level of polish, great graphics, audio and dark humour. Fantastic work, deserves to place pretty highly in a fair few categories and I think it will!

Nice game, very polished, and I like the environment manipulation mechanic. At first, it's not really clear that the lines represent stairs that putin can go through, also the end result after the placement is not very clear.

A game with an "engaged" plot, which is a good choice.

I agree with @skleembof : it's hard to evaluate how the game configuration will be after one move, and nearly impossible to anticipate two moves. I ended up pushing blocks mainly at random. Tile graphics are not very clear and do not help.

It's like in the board game "Labyrinth". You can more or less anticipate the next game configuration, but not the next two ones.

The intro screen reminds me of Tetris. So I was expecting more references to this game.

The psychedelic and shakey visual effects are well done, but not really adapted to the game and the theme. I often misclicked the arrows because of the rotating effect, it was quite annoying. Maybe some Putin-related effects would have been better : dolphins, rifles, shirtless... (these are memes related to him).

I was wondering if the game wouldn't be better with simpler tiles. Instead of big tiles with/without walls in the 4 directions, you could use little tiles which would be either a full block or an empty square. Then you multiply the board by 3 in width and height. Block pushes would be more predictable. Maybe Putin could move two tiles at each turn, to balance the fact that the board would be bigger. I think it's worth a try.

Anyway, I liked that little moment of fun.

Nice job, I was able to get 51, not sure the best strategy. I wonder if being able to move the nuke would increase player agency and give more options to the strategy.