If you aren’t a PC gamer, or haven’t been keeping up with gaming news too much, you may be unaware of the 2D puzzle platformer Teslagrad from Rain Games. Teslagrad originally came out for Steam way back in December, and it’s been delayed for the Wii U eShop a few times since then, but has the 10 month long wait been worth it?


    You start the game off with the title screen transitioning into the very beginning of the story. A man carries a baby boy to someone’s house, and the person there accepts him. Moving forward many years, there are now people that have found and are attempting to kill and/or kidnap the last Teslamancer -- you! You must escape. This is where the gameplay starts, and for right now, you can only run and jump. Eventually you make it into the base of the Tesla Tower, and have to figure out what to do from there.

    The first thing you’ll acquire when you get inside the Tesla Tower is a pair of Magnet Gloves that allow you to change the polarity of some blocks. At this point, the game is still rather easy, as gameplay is mostly just moving from room to room and punching blocks to change their polarity to get them to move, and there really aren’t any puzzles that take more than a few seconds of thinking at most to solve. Even after you acquire some Blink Boots (boots that allow you to teleport left or right a short distance), the game is fairly easy when it comes to puzzles, but the challenge of actually executing whatever you’re trying to do becomes harder. It’s when you acquire the Magnetic Cloak that Teslagrad really comes alive. This allows you to control your own polarity so that you can cling to the ceiling and fly upwards, among other things. The combination of these three things (and one more I won’t talk about) makes for some fun puzzle and inventive puzzle solving that can be tricky to pull off, but thankfully there’s no real penalty for dying, so feel free to attempt some trial and error. The most that’ll happen if you do the wherever you entered the room, and sometimes there are even multiple (invisible) checkpoints in a larger area.


    There is some action mixed with the puzzles present in Teslagrad, though this is mostly during the boss fights; the rest is purely puzzles and exploration. The boss fights are usually straightforward, as well; they’re typically right after you find a new piece of equipment and are built around whatever piece of equipment that is. This isn’t to say they’re not fun though, they’re all unique and fit right in with the rest of the game.

    As you progress through the game, one must appreciate the work put into Teslagrad and unique way of doing things. Not a sentence is spoken throughout the whole game, not a word of text besides menu icons, and yet the story is still communicated flawlessly. The music of the game isn’t really tremendous by itself, but it fits perfectly with the atmosphere of Teslagrad. The absolutely wonderful hand-drawn art of the game is mesmerizing, and at points I just stopped playing to look at the beauty of the screen before me. Both the music and the visuals greatly adds to the environment that Rain Games set up in Teslagrad, and adds something significant to the game even if it’s not gameplay related. The GamePad is not really used in this game, but it does have a map on it and can be used to view the scrolls (keep reading to find out what those are) that you collect. It can also be used for off-screen play, but besides this, the GamePad doesn’t have any functionality, and the game can be beaten without it.


    There are no loading screens in Teslagrad, though we did notice a second or so of lag or a drop in framerate occasionally when we went into a new room or did a few other tasks. There was also one minor glitch we encountered, but besides this, everything ran very smoothly. Nothing that really affected enjoyability occurred.

    It’s worth noting that after you beat the game in about five hours, there is an aspect that gives the game a bit more playability: collecting scrolls. Besides having a little art on them that shows a tiny part of the story, they can unlock something secret and special once you’ve collected all 36 of them. They’re scattered throughout the game, though, with no real indication of where any of them could possibly be, so you’ll have to explore the areas of the game thoroughly to find all of them. Depending on how good you are at finding these scrolls and then solving the puzzle of the area to get to them, this element could add hours of game time to your time, but only if you’re willing to scour the areas for them.


    It may take a little bit of time to fully enjoy the game, but once you get there, you’ll be hooked. For $15, it may take some consideration depending on your gaming interests, but if you're a fan of 2D platformers and/or puzzle games, this is a no-brainer. The equally charged parts of the attractive gameplay mechanics and enveloping atmosphere Rain Games creates is a unique but wonderful mix that works together as well as opposite magnetic poles attract. Rain Games has created a charming blend of 2D puzzle platforming action and an explorative and mysterious atmosphere that is unique, and this can’t be found in too many other games. Allow yourself to get pulled in by the magnetic force of Teslagrad, and you won’t be satisfied until you’ve solved every last puzzle.


Review copy provided by Rain Games.