Have you ever wondered what the most complex game out there could be? If you’ve ever asked yourself this then I suggest you check out a recent addition to the Indie Games catalogue called BioHack by Mark Walker. As a puzzle game, it is a unique twist on the puzzle genre as a whole. However, does the twist stand out enough to create a fun experience?
BioHack is a puzzle game that is based on 4 things: Metabolites, Inducers, Repressors, and Enzymes, each with their own unique function. The main purpose is to move a set amount of metabolites from one metabolite pool to another target pool in a specified time limit. While it may seem like a simple objective, there are other curves thrown in such as multiple paths that the metabolites can travel and the previously mentioned inducer and repressor functions.
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With the premise of the game being very black and white, this also makes the gameplay very simplistic as well. Press a button to run a simulation to see what the puzzle will does, add repressors or inducers accordingly, and retest until a solution is achieved. Unfortunately, this is the total depth of the game.
The complexity of puzzles, while not impossible, taxed my mind in a manner most foul. I recall trying every possible combination that I could imagine until I finally found one that worked approximately 30 minutes later for one of the earlier levels. While trying combinations that made sense such as creating a single fast path for my metabolites, the path I created was constantly ignored increasing my frustration.
Graphically speaking, the game is nice but with the simplistic nature of the game, the graphics also reflect this with not many animations and plain black background. Audibly there is music but as I became increasing frustrated by the puzzles, I was easily ignoring it.
With 25 static levels and a large array of randomly generated levels, the replay value is there but the excitement just isn’t. While I appreciate and enjoy the puzzle genre as a whole, BioHack sits on the edge of mediocrity with its controller throwing complexity, bland backgrounds, and transparent background music.
Overall, unless you are a hardcore fan of the puzzle genre, this would be a title to pass on, even for an 80 :MSPoints: title. There is no real fun factor to the title unless you like to run theoretical statistics for fun. However, if you like to try BioHack, the demo can be downloaded here.
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