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What happens when you combine archeology, puzzle-solving and hamsters? You get Hamstermind, the adorable puzzle game by indie dev Righteous Tree. Solve puzzles and dive deeper into a mysterious pyramid in search of treasure. The premise has just enough going for it to keep you intrigued and the puzzles themselves are actually pretty relaxing and cozy. I wasn’t ever bored in my time with Hamstermind. It’s not revolutionizing the puzzle solver genre but it also doesn’t need to.
In Hamstermind, you control the legendary explorer Hamster Jones as he gets challenged to solve the mystery of a massive pyramid by the cat genie Charaon. With help from his friends Dr Hamstein, Ane-Marie, and Chris Eratops, Hamster Jones is ready to venture into the aforementioned pyramid and find the treasure hiding inside. The story isn’t anything amazing, but it does serve its purpose. And bits of lore are strung throughout as Hamster Jones interacts with the different characters.
Speaking of, the first thing that happens as Hamster Jones enters the pyramid is an encounter with Charaon, which results in him receiving The Tournesol, a sunflower seed shaped compass. The Tournesol grants Hamster Jones the ability to rotate certain sections of floor, which is crucial for solving the main puzzles of the various rooms. In almost every room, Jones will need to arrange the sections so he can navigate them and collect one or more glowing spheres that will let him access the next room. There are other kinds of puzzles as well, each room for example also has a cage in it. This cage comes with a simple sliding puzzle where you have to try and get a block onto a specific space with a matching symbol. Another type of puzzle sees Jones planning the course of an insect-like drone so it passes over vulnerable spots in a wall in order to blow it up. There are even vending machine-like combination puzzles, which I admit I struggled hard with and mostly ignored them.
One thing I do appreciate about Hamstermind is that the puzzles avoid becoming boring. They gradually increase in difficulty, usually a new element at a time to give the player a chance to understand how it all works before upping the ante. For example, one of the room puzzles could have a gargoyle in one of the sections. If this gargoyle sees the player, it looks down the section from being rotated, so you have to get out of its view first. The next puzzle could have two of these gargoyles, or blocks that need pushing. Another example are the cage puzzles. Initially, they just feature one block with a scarab symbol on it. Later cages feature more complicated layouts and even more blocks like a scorpion and a cobra(which can accidentally fall on the wrong spot by the way) to make it more challenging. I respect and appreciate that the game doesn’t have any massive jumps in difficulty but you definitely will need to do some serious thinking in later stages.
All of this is packaged in a cute and clearly Egyptian themed package. I don’t have much to say about the visuals except they work well for the game. The art for each of the characters looks great and I like that Hamster Jones gets access to additional outfits after finishing enough cage puzzles. I smiled at the Layton inspired professor outfit in particular. The outfits even come with their own version of Jones’ artwork for conversations. The pyramid itself features some nice motifs and the overall cartoonyness helps keep it from being too serious. There’s colorful goop amidst coffins, glowing runes around the rotatable sections, and more. They nailed the visuals here.
I wish I could say the same for the sound. Now, don’t get me wrong. The sound design itself isn’t terrible. The sound effects are nice and pronounced. There’s a weight to rotating sections or moving blocks that’s conveyed pretty well. Actions do things and it’s easy to hear. But the lack of notable background music is pretty disappointing. For an adventure in a pyramid, you might expect some epic sounding orchestral songs or at least some ambient ruin music. What we actually get is so subtle, I genuinely forget it was even there. The only standout thing is the obvious elevator music for loading screens. It’s a cute touch but not enough to make up for everything else.
Hamstermind probably won’t be winning any awards, except maybe cutest main character. And that is completely fine. The game delivers a well-made and laid back puzzle solving experience. It’s good for killing some time and some of the later puzzles can be real brain teasers. It’s the same sort of vibe I get from daily sudoku. When I want a game where I can just chill and relax, Hamstermind is a good option. I enjoy the brain teasing puzzles and making my way deeper into the pyramid. It’s not perfect but what puzzle game is?
Biggest of thanks to TILT Games for the review copy in exchange for an unbiased Review
