Tetragon Review – Pillars of Salt

Developer: Cafundo Estudio Criativo Eireli

Publisher: Buka Entertainment

Release date: April 2, 2021

Available on: PC, Xbox One, PS4, Switch (reviewed)

(Disclaimer: as stated above, this review is for the Switch version of Tetragon. My finer points on the controls should prove universal across most platforms, perhaps excluding PC with a keyboard+mouse setup. Just something I thought was worth noting.)

Lucios, chopping wood as a woodsman should.

Tetragon is a puzzle platformer developed by Cafundo Studio. It tells the story of a woodsman named Lucios, in search of his missing son, who journeys to a mysteriously *boxy* world known as Tetragon. Here, he utilizes a power known as TetraGen to manipulate the world and navigate his way through a few dozen puzzle rooms. I don’t really have anything to say about the story. It’s minimalist and functions well enough to drive the game forward; no more, no less. The whole experience should only take a handful of hours, even with trickier and longer stages thrown into the mix. Your goal for each stage is to reach the end, and environmental manipulation acts as your jigsaw pieces to solve these puzzles, so to speak. You unlock new abilities throughout the game, but I’d like to dwell on a single mechanic that has a particularly detrimental implementation.

One of your primary abilities is changing the height of specific pillars throughout the levels. This is primarily used to elevate one’s self, create bridges, and open pathways. It’s unfortunate then that the method for controlling these pillars is rather cumbersome. The L and R buttons are used to cycle between the moveable pillars, while the right stick is used to adjust the height. The first problem posed here is that cycling between them is slow, needing to cycle clockwise or counterclockwise around the level, pillar-by-pillar, until you reach the desired one. This is an issue when needing to manipulate time-sensitive pillars, such as the burning, automatically shifting pillars that need to be locked in place by other pillars. One may very easily overshoot or undershoot their target and miss their window, as they rapidly cycle around the stage, and try to make sense of where the pillar cursor currently resides. The second, more subtle yet arguably more damning problem is a lack of cursor memory. The right stick’s only function is to maneuver these pillars up and down. However, the right stick is functionless until you use the bumpers to select a pillar. Unfortunately, even if your cursor is already on the intended target, this means after exiting the pillar manipulation and then returning, you’re forced to move your cursor from said pillar, only to move it back immediately afterwards. This is an omnipresent occurrence, and the frustration caused by this never ceases. This usually doesn’t mess up anything, but it’s annoying nonetheless. These issues could’ve been improved with just three fixes:

1. A more intuitive control scheme for controlling the pillars (I don’t have an alternative proposal, but I’m sure one exists).
2. Allowing the right stick to operate the last controlled pillar without the need to move your cursor from the target.
3. A more clearly-defined visual cue signaling that you’re in control of a pillar, meaning less downtime as you assess where your cursor currently rests in the world. This wouldn’t be necessary without the time-sensitive puzzles, but you can’t successfully have one without the other. Distraction caused by visual noise is detrimental to a puzzle experience, where elements should be easily readable to the player (Portal and Thomas Was Alone spring to mind as world class examples of visual clarity in puzzle games).

Speaking of visuals… Tetragon places a lot of stock in its art style, which is admittedly rather pleasant to look at. It has a painterly quality to it, richly textured with minimalist character design. This is the number 1 aspect in which Tetragon excels. It isn’t particularly mindblowing, but it is very nice.

If this review has come across as overwhelmingly critical, it’s because there isn’t a whole lot for me to comment on. Level design can oftentimes be decent, and does occasionally encourage creative play to reach collectibles (it’s unfortunate that the game doesn’t go far enough with these offshoot paths). I respect the work Cafundo Studio did here, but personally, the game just didn’t hit the mark. Tetragon is a competent puzzle platformer, bogged down by a few unfortunate design choices. It’s inoffensive and (for the most part) polished, which makes it far from bad. In the realm of indie puzzlers, you could certainly play much worse than Tetragon. However, with its control and clarity issues, compounded by a personal lack of appeal amidst a marketplace of competitors… you could also play much better. This pillar stands about average.

5/10

P.S. if you’re wondering why I said “(for the most part) polished,” showcased above a particularly amusing glitch I ran into, where Lucios would repeatedly march to his death before the level properly began. Maybe he had also grown frustrated and just couldn’t take it anymore.