Game: Alephant
Genre: Puzzle, Sokoban, Logic
System: Steam (Windows)
Developer|Publisher: Lucas Le Slo
Controller Support: No
Price: US $9.99 | UK £8.50 | EU € 9,75
Release Date: March 1st, 2023
Review code provided with many thanks to Thinky Games
When you get to review a game that has been nominated for a Thinky Game award, one thing is certain: this will be a brain teaser! And Alephant sure is that. Alephant is a game similar to Sokoban, but it has its own special style. It’s advertised as a wordless game about language revolving around the first letter of the Hebrew alphabet. That’s aleph, and that letter is generally silent. However, it can be combined with the niqqud (vowels) to make a sound.
Elephant and the Oxen Can’t Communicate
The developer has taken an interesting idea about the Hebrew language and wrapped it into an appealing package of a lonely elephant who meets several oxen. It really wants to connect, but they don’t speak the same language. It’s amazing how you really feel the elephant’s sadness when the oxen turn away from it. But, by solving the puzzles in Alephant and connecting the silent letter aleph to the niqqud, the sound is made. Which eventually helps the elephant connect with the oxen.
Of course, this is just the background story. It’s up to you to make your way through the levels presented. Nothing is explained; there is no tutorial. You have to figure out what the goal is and what to do by testing, watching what happens and then testing new moves to reach your goal.
Difficult to Explain
The play level has one or more aleph symbols in a grid and matching vowels (niqqud). The vowels can be pushed by the elephant, and while you are making your way over the grid, the aleph symbol might rotate. Ultimately, it has to point the same way as the vowel, and when it does, it can connect when they are next to each other. When the elephant then steps on the connected aleph, a sound is made! And once an aleph is in this way connected, you can push the two of them together.
It’s really difficult to explain how it works exactly, but after a few levels it will make sense to you. After the first few levels, the difficulty ramps up pretty quickly, and the challenge begins. New mechanics are introduced, like having to pair the aleph with the same coloured niqqud, obstructions that you have to work around and so on.
Some levels of Alephant will require a lot of thought to figure out why things move the way they do, and how you can reach the result you want. The eureka feeling when you finally solve it is great, though. However, I can’t help but wonder if this isn’t too much of a challenge for a casual puzzler like me.
Visuals, SteamDeck and Sound
Alephant is brilliantly made, no doubt about that. The visuals are minimalistic but look good; the fact that there’s no tutorial or spoken word forces you to start learning by trial and error immediately. There’s no fluff; everything in the game is there for a reason.
Nice little touches are included, too: work your way through the first chapter, where the levels are indicated by letters of the Latin alphabet, the ones I use every day. But in the second chapter, the levels are indicated by Greek letters, and so on. This makes for a nice bit of extra knowledge.
The background music is very fitting and relaxing, and I played Alephant on the Steam Deck. It worked well enough, even though it hasn’t been Steam Deck approved yet.
Conclusions for Alephant
Alephant is a puzzle game that can really be qualified as a Thinky game: no instructions, it’s up to you to figure out why some moves work and others don’t. The game is brilliantly made and has a no-frills approach to puzzling. But even with the minimalistic approach, it looks very good.
If you’re a fan of hard puzzles that require a lot of thought and trial and error, and you feel the Eureka moment is worth it, Alephant is the game for you! If, like me, you are more of the casual puzzle type, this might not be the one for you.
Final Verdict: I Like it a Lot