I like to think that, having been supplanted by autoshooters and twig-picking survival games as the Steam Next Fest genre du jour, 2D puzzle-platformers can circle back from ubiquity to becoming cool and clever again.
In any event, I’ve definitely enjoyed As I Began To Dream, a charmingly hand-drawn side-scroller that delivers its puzzles with a tactile clickiness straight out of your childhood toolbox.
The demo is out now. You are Lily, a vaguely Princess Kaguya-lookin' young girl with the power to flip, rotate, and swap square chunks of scenery.
At first this is more of a build-your-own-platforms exercise than a basis for actual puzzles, but soon you’ll be umming and ahhing over which tile goes where, in which orientation, and whether you should be teleporting yourself along with it.
Especially when shadowy enemies and laser emitters start showing up, and your panel flips become weaponised as much as they are about traversal.