Radium

Radium is a very simple game with very basic components, but hell if they aren't well-designed.

You use two gravity... turrets(?) to move the ball to the goal. It is a fairly unique concept, and the controls feel intuitive after a while. Ball movement is super smooth, there a re a lot of obstacles and gimmicks that add quite a bit of challenge, and the restart button is lightning fast (praise the lord!). There is no inane story or redundant visuals; the game focuses solely on the gameplay.

Radium, is fun, and I haven't had fun with a physics based puzzle game since Portal.

Simple little indie with a fun idea. Couple super annoying levels but overall well executed game. Worth the money.

Another in my long list of puzzle games. This one is timed, so don't expect it to reward you for progressing at your own pace. It's a speed puzzler. The physics in it are fun, and figuring out how to control it with fluid motion can be a steep learning curve. Don't turn the sound up too loud, because it makes little clicks at you sometimes and it wasn't designed for headphones. The sound is generally inconscequential, so turning it down won't hurt you. But leaving it up might be hard on your poor little eardrums.

Asymmetrical movements in a fast-paced level bring good feelings, when you finish the level with 3 stars. It is worth.

They should call this game Tedium.

There are 200+ levels to Radium, but you can't see 'em simply from beating the previous levels. Oh, no. No, no, no. For every group of ten levels, you won't unlock the next set until it thinks you're good enough at the previous ones.

And you're not good enough at the previous ones. And you won't want to be.

Radium is a game based on your skill to navigate a ball through hazardous environments, by controlling the ball with two control points that exert force on the ball. Some levels include collecting tokens to open the exit. You should watch that short video on the store page, screenshots can't depict how the interaction with the ball works.

It's very simple, and I found it challenging in exactly the right way. Difficult, but not frustrating. Getting a feel for the physics, retrying and learning the levels is a big element, and you will make progress and it feels very rewarding. There are no random elements in this game, when you fail it will be your fault and you will happily try again. The experience is very smooth, with a very short 2 seconds countdown before the timer starts, and a key that instantly restarts the level if you're about to fail. The levels are quite short, rarely more than a minute long, most of them around 30 seconds I guess.

Then there are time limits to beat to collect stars, and this game becomes essentially a racing game where you have to take corners with the right amount of speed, you will steer and drift and use walls or try other approaches through parts of a level, to try and optimize your time.

There are several gameplay mechanics that the game employs to change things up and keep you entertained (very successfully so, I might add):
- collecting tokens: in some levels, they are distributed around a maze or nonlinear network of tunnels that you have to learn or to optimize your path through them. In other levels they just are scattered in an open area with some hazards, and you have to see how to collect them quickly by just steering the ball as precise as possible around the hazards. You'll often have to weigh risk of collisions against speed.
- special tokens that reverse the ball control, from pulling towards the control points to pushing away from the control points. Often they cannot be bypassed and you have to be ready to adapt to that other "mode", which is always a chance for disaster :)
- limited visibility in some levels: sometimes there's darkness and only your ball's surroundings are illuminated to some extent, which emphasizes your learning the level, with each retry getting better and anticipating the point where to break or where to initiate a curve or something. Like car racing in fog, on a track you are familiarizing yourself with. Some maze levels employ this limited visibility to make you try out branches of paths, and to beat a certain time limit you'll have to remember and take the direct path to the exit.
- many of the later levels have moving hazards (for example sawblades) that follow a path, and timing your movements and controlling the speed of the ball becomes even more important. Things can get tight and you have to be quite precise in controlling the ball. The movements of those hazards are predetermined and never random, so retrying a level will eventually help you master it.

Most of the levels have a very nice difficulty, I rarely spent more than 20 minutes on single level until I was able to beat the hardest time limit to earn 3 stars. Often it was more like 3 minutes. But it's not easy either, it's very normal to initially fail a level a couple of times by colliding with a hazard, or to make it through but not beating any time limit and thus earning only 1 star.

I noticed that within most levels the most challenging/risky parts of that level come up near the level beginning, which is a player-friendly way of designing things because this way you're not wasting time on any part that leads to the risky part where failure is probable. I've seen other games make that mistake but Radium keeps you motivated to retry, and keeps boredom low. There are some exceptions in the last levels though.

For people who care about achievements and 100%ing their games: this game is absolutely friendly in this regard, the later levels pose a challenge but it's not a matter of luck but a matter of skill, there are no broken achievements and the achievements are not grindy.

This is one of my favorite games on Steam.
It's got a simple formula, and has no music, which could be distracting from the very simple elements of the game: using two modules to move a ball around.

The sound effects are repetitive, but fit the theme, as does the entire environment.

Just an excellent puzzle game with no frills and a set of achievements easily obtained with enough practice.

I wouldn't recommend this normally (it's a decent game), but it's really not bad if you can grab it on a sale. I will give it that the mechanics are really, really interesting.

Okay...it's interesting, I'll give it that. You've got two points that (when activated) either attract or push away the ball, which you'll need to guide through mazes. The unusualness makes it relatively easy to learn and hard to master. So there's a challenge to it as well.

The thing is: as far as minimalistic goes, this one really goes LOW. No story or narrative, no music, only the most basic sounds, not even backgrounds. Levels barely have a curve and aren't designed in interesting ways. Everything is bland and uninteresting, even by abstract game standards. Yes, by the price tag, you can't exactly expect gorgeous graphics, but games like nightsky or duet do similar things but are rounded a lot better.

All in all, when I look at this game, I get the impression that this was just dabbling in the possibilities of a game editor. It's in no way a BAD end result, and with proper care and handling it has potential to even be a good game. But this is just the bare, bare minimum one could expect. And as such, I would suggest other games. Or this one in a huge-ass remastered version. :P

Radium is a puzzle game where you have to go through obstacles to reach the end of the level. If you complete a level in a certain time period, you will receive three "stars". Those stars are used to unlock more sections/levels. During the beginning of the game, the levels are pretty easy and are a bit boring. As you progress through the game, the levels gradually become more and more difficult, so difficult you would either smash your keyboard or throw your mouse at the wall. If you like a challenging mind game or any kind of puzzle game, Radium is the perfect game for you. If you are more into FPS games you probably would find it quite uninteresting and would not enjoy Radium as much as others. Nevertheless, this is a great game where you can spend hours trying to complete a level with three stars.
10/10 would throw my mouse again.

It's something of a new concept but as puzzle games go, you can do much better. The level design is dull and it possesses points that if you don't do perfectly, you have to restart. That would be fine if you didn't have to exit the level and then reenter the level, meaning that you're often 10-30 seconds from retrying what you just failed at. There's enough ideas to fill a game about a quarter of the length, so much of it is repeated ad-nauseum.

It's worth the price if you're intrigued by the concept, but if you just want a puzzle game to entertain the mind, there are better games for a similar price.

It's smartly designed. Lacks any soundtrack of any sort. If you like a maze style, puzzle-ish and a challenging little game then this one's a bang for your buck.

Wanna get salty? Some rounds are easy, some rounds are extremely hard and need tons of patience. In some rounds the difference between success and fail is less like 1mm. Just saying, you will need a new keyboard, table, mouse and everything else you will be smashing during those tough rounds.

For a 3.4mb game it's really fun, better buy at a sale, i'd say. Anyway, good luck and lot of patience!

It should be noted: Everything is against the clock. If you don't complete all the puzzles on a level in at least the "par" time, you cannot advance to the next level. Obviously, this gets harder and harder as the game progresses. Not what I would call casual or relaxing. If you can live with it on those terms, I guess it is fun. I don't like competing with clocks.

'Radium Boy', a distant family member of Super Meat Boy. All I can say is, that if you love(d) Super Meat Boy, play this! This game isn't an SMB look-alike, but it has the same positive effect.
8.5/10
PS I got mind f'ed a few times.

Got to the very end after several hours of play, and really enjoyed it. Difficulty ramps up quickly and mastery of your two-button controls is key to success. Overall I'd say this is a 2D physics-based puzzle game like none other. Get it!

RADIUM is a game I like VERY much. I anticipated a significant challenge, and something worth a try to entertain myself for at least an hour or so. I got SO much more for a very low price. ($2.49US on sale.)

The premise is that a ball is to be moved through many different maze-type layouts. Nothing new there. But what is new is the method of movement. Two turrets(?) shoot rays from opposite sides of the screen, as the player requests by means of the arrow buttons, to pull the ball toward that spot in order to progress through the layout. That in itself is quite enough to add a challenge, but the turrets (for lack of a better term) may do just the opposite and repel the ball. Or…..the direction of attraction may switch upon hitting a specific symbol. Sometimes frequently and repeatedly within the same level (pull… push… pull… push…) And there may be saw-blade walls, floors and/or ceilings that will “pop” the ball upon contact. And sometimes, in addition to maneuvering through the maze, a player may be required to hit targets through the rather imprecise control exercised through the turrets, THEN complete the maze. And of course, many and varied combinations of everything mentioned above, to the tune of nearly 300 puzzles. I say puzzles, because this is far more than a simple arcade type game. Quite frequently the only way to complete the level is through momentum, the very force of gravity that must be accumulated, then expressed through enough force to reach a point by which the circles are able to have a desired effect toward success. The challenge can be just as significant as it sounds.

What makes this game even more special is that each level has three levels of completion: 1. 2 or 3 as measured by the “tabs” of the radioactivity symbol. And until a certain number of success are reached, progress is blocked. But fear not, this isn’t a near impossible level of completion like “Don’t Shoot Yourself”, but a level low enough that it is unlikely a player will ever be blocked to the point of frustration. In fact, it’s not unusual to have as many as 20 levels available, simply by repeated attempts for medium success (or better) by returning to earlier levels. Only at the very early stages have I ever hit the “wall”.

RADIUM rapidly becomes a Zen-like experience of giving up conscious control, and letting actions of the mind replace those of the brain and fingers. And this begins quite quickly (at least in my case, which I don’t imagine to be unusual.) This is one of the best examples of combination puzzle/arcade I’ve seen, and a great game to play if you only have a few minutes, or many hours. HIGHEST RECOMMENDATION.

Can't come up with anything more accurate than "physics-based skill game". You control a ball by attracting it to those two circles, with just two respective buttons. Controls are floaty by definition, but it's mostly fine. Getting used to such controls is a lot of fun. It is very pleasurable to move around each one of those bends.

Then annoying obstacles get in your way... not a big fan of what they add to the game, but you gotta have some challenge! And the game is indeed very difficult. I don't think I'll ever complete every level. But at the same time, getting 100% achievements is easier than that, so that should give the sense of accomplishment. Unlocking all the levels is also quite a feat, because you need to complete preceding levels fast enough. By the way, speedrunning is at the core of the game: your score is based only on time. But don't worry, if you just can't succeed at some poorly designed difficult level, you can compensate for it by improving your time on other, more pleasant levels.

Even though the game is controlled with just 2 buttons, I was left dissatisfied by having to use arrow keys.

There is no music, which is fine. Sound effects are few and not very pleasant, but I didn't have any urges to turn them off.
Obviously, there is no story. The graphics you can see on the screenshots.

You may say the price could be lower, but you do get around 8 hours of gameplay out of it.

All in all a great game. It does have a few problems, but they mostly don't show up until later. Do give it a try.

★★★★★★★☆☆☆

Very cool puzzle game. It's also hard and challenging. Very easy to control with the xbox360 controller. I was really surprised in a positive way with this game. It's really entertaining. If you like puzzles, you will surely enjoy this one. Bought it with a 15% discount. Believe it to be worth full price. Very happy with my purchase. Highly recommend. 10/10