Lowglow

I am 32 years old.

My ex-wife and I have a daughter together, and we adopted our son together. Both are now 4 years old.

When we were going through our separation, I felt lost and unhappy. I was self-destructive. One day, I was so angry with everything spiraling out of control that I punched a concrete wall in a moment of overwhelming emotion. This resulted in breaking my fifth metacarpal in my right hand—the hand I worked with, played games with, and used to carry my children to bed—the hand I desperately needed to ensure I could continue providing.

Upon learning the severity of the self-inflicted damage, I became almost suicidal. Keep in mind that just a few months before this, I was the happiest man, with no history of depression or anxiety. I had never experienced anger outbursts, nor was I the type to break down and cry, but I was in a tough situation that truly prevented me from seeing the light on the other side.

With nothing better to do, I looked for a game I could play WITH ONE HAND while recovering. Somehow, I stumbled upon this game and read some of the comments. I decided it was worth a try... I must admit I didn't beat the game, nor did I play as much as some of you. In fact, I may have played this game for only a day or two. That being said, after doing so, I had a new joy and hope for life. I managed to leave behind the pain and suffering that had been thrust upon me. I could experience the joy and happiness of other people. I relaxed for 5 ♥♥♥♥ minutes listening to this music, long enough to realize that I would be okay.

After realizing this, I turned off the game and went back to work. My hand hurt a lot, but I was motivated. I stopped feeling so sorry for myself and became the father I needed to be at that moment, not the weak boy I was behaving like.

Today, I am close friends with the mother of my children. We don't fight, argue, or say hurtful things to each other. We are parents and friends.

Now I have 3 children. My third child is, wait, ALSO 4 YEARS OLD. The woman I am with was going through a very similar situation at the time of my separation, and we just unexpectedly stumbled into each other's lives. We have been dating for a year and are very happy together.

Moral of the story: you never know what life has in store for you, and if I had given up when all odds were against me, I wouldn't be where I am today. This silly little game helped me realize that.

Thank you.

Where do I even begin?
Do I recommend this game? Yes, duh. Lowglow manages to be both challenging and fun without slowing down to a halt because you cant find a way to finish the puzzle. The levels are well thought out and very engaging, some if not most of them will have your gears turning since there's no ''right'' way to complete them (especially if you're not used to playing this kind of games often).
This game has a story, too. It's nice. Not on the nose whilst providing a justification for what's going on
Visually, it looks great, I really dig the style the developers chose, everything is glassy, like walking through a barely lit chemistry lab filled with fluorescent solutions. Sound-wise the game is really pleasent.
Today marks the day I finally finished all every single level (''spoilers'' ahead) bonus levels included having platinum'd it long ago.
Speaking of that, should you be looking for a game to 100%, this is one of them, no doubt, as there are only 2 ''''painful'''' achievements which can be obtained ny just playing the game normally.
My only complaint is that (''spoilers'' again, sorry) the last 3 bonus chambers (umbra, penumbra and antumbra) can be completed from start to finish yet they wont show up as such while browsing through the menu. this is slightly annoying when you manage to beat the level(s) under par.

Play it, have fun doing it and most of all, enjoy your journey through Umbralite. I hopefully didn't butcher that lol

Lowglow Review

Really simple concept, but the whole atmosphere and gameplay make up for it. A bit short, but pleasant to play and experiment.

Overall a nice, short and relaxing puzzle with great art and sound design. The story felt unnecessary, given the uniqueness of each world and the introduction of the new mechanics have nothing to do with it. Still, you can just skip it so it's not a big deal. The puzzles are fine, most of them are not that challenging and the golden lines concept works perfect to avoid getting stuck. Not that you'll need them more than once or twice, but I get the idea of why they were included.

The game also has a decent replay value because of the under par achievements. The vaults, however, offer no reward at all so unless you've really liked the game, you'll probably skip them.

On the not so bright side, the controls could've been done a bit better. There's no undo option and in some levels the angles need to be so precise that the relaxing experience might turn to frustrating very quick. Nonetheless, these situations are rare so it's not a deal-breaker.

Lowglow is a fantastic 2D puzzle game. The videos and screenshots will tell you clearly what's going on here - the mechanics of playing the game are very simple. You direct drops from the feeder to the end destination, a sort of black hole, by drawing short lines with the mouse. The drops bounce off the lines and various types of walls and change direction accordingly. It's your job to make sure they reach the hole using only a very small number of lines - usually only about 2 or 3. You can easily change the angle of the line, move them, or destroy them and start again using the left mouse button, it's extremely intuitive. Each puzzle, or level, takes place entirely on one screen.

But the game has some clever tricks to keep you thinking. To help you, an extra "golden line" is often available if you're struggling, which is great as it offers a bit of leeway and helps to keep the difficulty curve very balanced - Lowglow really is a very user-friendly game to pick up and learn. Also, there are different types of walls to navigate - some are normal, others speed the drop up in one straight line, and some curve the trajectory inwards and slow you down. You learn how each type works just by playing the game and gaining experience. Get about three drops into the final hole in quick succession and that's normally enough to complete the level and move on. But wait! Sometimes there's more than one target, or more than one feeder, in a level! Ah, those ones were quite tricky, but very imaginative and the solutions were genuinely brilliant. I'd be spoiling it for you if I explained how they work here.

The game looks and sounds fantastic. Any time I was stumped for a bit, I just enjoyed watching these pretty little glowing droplets bounce off everything and lighting up the screen. The game description is right: this really is an audiovisual experience. And strangely, even when I was struggling, the game never felt frustrating. The game is paced so well that a level will rarely take more than about five minutes, but still makes you feel quite clever. The main game is not an extremely difficult campaign, but it offers you some optional unlockable levels too, which so far for me have proved to be more challenging. I've done about half of them now, and now have no golden lines left to help me, so I think I've got about as far as I'm going to get. I was really impressed with the main story, and the illustrations of the "God" figures, they helped to give Lowglow a real sense of atmosphere and context. This game is really good, and frankly a steal for the money. Highly recommended.

Despite the game crashing, on my computer at least, just as I complete the 5th chapter and presumably win the game, this is a great little puzzler with a nice atmosphere and very nifty physics mechanics. It looks and sounds beautiful, and the instant feedback as you try to figure out the puzzle makes it a lot more relaxing than many other games in the genre where you have to start over rather than here where you tweak until you get it right.

While the game is pretty simple enough: draw lines and modify them, it's a pretty good simple game with a nice aesthetic. The story is another generic "it's dark here" plot, but the twist is no one knows you have the power to restore them. Sure, it gets boring after a while, but it's a nice calming game. Recommended!

Well polished, pleasing music and soothing puzzles. Lots of replay value. I haven't finished all the bonus levels, but not too easy or too hard.

Corny story line, that didn't quite suit the mood. Who wants dark and gloomy or horror when you are trying to relax?

I ended up shrugging off the storyline and just enjoying the puzzles. If you can do that, well worth the money even not on sale. The game is well done otherwise, and very engaging.

Possible alternate game titles:

Pretty cool physics game with a simple premise, but getting all achievements will have you working hard given the precision you need on each level, especially on the bonus ones. The atmosphere is simplistic, but melodious, making you feel like you're in another world.

Lowglow is a twisted physics based puzzle game with 5 different sections and extra vaults. There are 100+ puzzles and it took me about 11 hours to finish the game 100%.

I thought overall that it was a good puzzle game, with interesting visuals and audio. Some of the later levels did get a bit irritating though because the game was very picky about where and at what angle your lines were placed. Just moving the line a hair made it go to a significatly different place.

So I would only suggest this game to the more patient puzzlers. And even then I feel like you should get it on a sale.

Crayon Physics + Peggle + Auditorium

Pleasant atmosphere, tricky but forgiving physics-based ricochet puzzles.

Droplets fall from a spawn point, and you must place straight lines on the screen to bounce the droplets toward the goal. Once a line has been placed, you move it around or fine-tune the angle by just moving an endpoint. There's no time limit, but you have a limited number of lines to draw per level, and you must hit the goal several times in a row to cement your success. Each zone adds a new twist (gravity effects, etc). Successfully completing a level adds to your stock of "golden lines" which can be used once-per level if you need more than the provided number of lines. Many of the levels can be beaten "under par" for added challenge.

I'm a sucker for the glowing crystal aesthetic used here; the visual & sound designs are clean and pleasant, and the ambient background tones make it a relaxing puzzle experience.

Pylon / 10

It's a fun and relaxing puzzle game, which revolves around bouncing lights toward a goal. When the light hits a block of a certain color, it's behavior changes. (Red destroys the light, Blue makes it gravitate downward, Yellow makes it gravitate upward, and Green makes it impervious to gravity.) Every time the light hits a block, a musical chime plays, so it reminds me of the old DS game Electroplankton. The levels are very 'trial and error' heavy, but there's no time limit, so you can just relax and play your way through. Its a pretty short game, but definately worth the $4 I paid for it on sale. :)

quite enjoyable, from the music and sounds to the colors and visuals. not violent or stressful, no time limits, and smooth play.

This game is an unexpected gem on steam. Some of the levels are very challenging but not too difficullt. And when you compelete a level you feel a little smarter, or maybe just lucky, espesially when you finish a level on your first line placement. Not sure what is going on with the spoken dialogue, or lack of it rather, but not a game breaker. Would like to see more games from Rockodile like this.

Great graphics, and easy to play around with. In that sense it's very much recommended. What I did not like so much though is the "story"; I am sure the developers had a nice time creating it, but I found it to be nowhere near as interesting as the storytelling of games like Portal (1 and 2) and The Talos Principle. Due to the story, as well as the somewhat "repetitiveness" of the levels , I can only give this a mild recommendation.

Interesting designs, challenging levels and nice visual presentations make this game worth playing.

The only thing I want to discuss is the bonus puzzles. I doubt there should be any "motivation" of the solution for some of them. I solved vault 1 by first noticing a chaotic behaviour in the intersection of two forcing fields, then putting the line there and adjusting for around 100 different angles (subtle adjustments, obviously). And not surprisingly, even the smallest adjustment of the position will lead to a completely different outcome.

I think when you have two constant force fields acting in the opposite direction with possible reflections (as in vault 1), the system becomes highly chaotic. I mean not even normal dynamical systems like a double pendulum but much more complicated governing systems. It is therefore almost impossible to know what should work out - you just have to keep trying.

More surprising is vault 4, it has a constant forcing field and an electric field (as the particle gets repelled), I believe the system should be 100x more complicated that the above case and have not yet figured out the correct position of the second line. You need a huge acceleration from the forcing field, but I don't know whats the initial condition.

Maybe I am just not playing in the correct style, but aside from the bonus puzzles everything work out fine for me.

Also, it will be extremely helpful if there is a replay mode - Some of the curvatures are amazing.

When I first saw “Lowglow” in the Upcoming section, I was impressed enough to take the relatively uncommon risk of posting its announcement in my Activity feed (an action that has bit me on my donkey on occasion.) This time I absolutely made the correct choice.

“Lowglow” is a casual, meditative puzzle game composed of colors, lights and sound. Lights fall from the “sky”, and must be guided by the player to that puzzle’s target, somewhere on the screen. This is done by placing, and angling, one or several “bouncy” lines. There is no time restraint, no rush (except for one specific achievement.) The lights fall, and bounce, and change direction and speed based on color and type of the object they contact. “Lowglow” is, in fact such a simple game, conceptually, that I find it difficult to produce an interesting review, though to not make the effort would be tragic.

Sometimes it seems the object of “Lowglow” isn’t necessarily to simply reach the target, but to create the most beautiful, and musical, pathway of flowing and singing lights in the process. I suspect there are “best” methods, but the presence of achievements based on supra-par success indicates that there are many, perhaps dozens, of winning choices for each level. This is also a strong indication of replayability. The line(s) must be placed and angled very precisely, so a knowledge of physics and Newton’s laws of gravity will certainly come in handy. Lines can very easily be placed, changed, moved and deleted. Controls could not be simpler.

I don’t know how long “Lowglow” gameplay lasts, but after about 2 hours I have only 2 of 12 achievements, so I suspect the increased difficulty of further levels will add quite a lot of time to game completion. (As levels are locked until accessed, I can’t speak further at this point.) As well, there is an editor in the works to add even more interest and wonder. Sometimes I find myself grinning from amazement at the complexity of a winning scene.

Along with “Lowglow” gameplay is a pleasant and entertaining story of exploration, and (one presumes) spiritual growth. While interesting to some, this can be easily skipped by those that wish, as it doesn’t seem necessary to the puzzle mechanics. The puzzle mechanics themselves seem to be such that as soon as it seems the game grows easy, something new is encountered that must be investigated thoroughly through vigorous investigation of the effects of gravity and propulsion.

“Lowglow” is a wonderfully entertaining game with a superior learning curve and significant challenges. It’s a bit more expensive than most conceptually similar puzzle games, but by no means excessively so, and quite possibly the editor will add completely new dimensions to explore. It can be played very easily while doing almost anything else that you may find to be of less interest (such as meetings or conversations.) At this stage I can only express a feeling that this game was created as a labor of love, and to play it is no labor at all.

I had really good experience on my first two play sessions (2 hours or so).

Lowglow delivers what it promises, an artsy puzzle game. I personally like the the art and sound design. Some of the dialog is so-so but the atmospheric mumbling noises in the background help to mitigate that, once again a praise to the sound design.

The levels are not that hard at first, then they start to require quite a bit of trial and error to get it just right. It's fun as even a slight change in one of the lines can totally change the trajectory. Around the green area, some of the puzzles seem like impossible without using the help lines. Oh, and the feeling when you get a level completed off the bat by just drawing a single line, awesome.

So, the game has some bad moments but a lot more enjoyment than dissapointment. Totally worth the price if you enjoy puzzle games.

Nice little zen puzzle game, great audiovisual experience. The difficulty curve is pretty forgiving, but there have already been couple of levels that have needed couple more tries to make it work.

Some lines and selections of words seemed a bit out of place on the monologue that happens between zones, but overall the dialog seems fitting to the athmosphere.

The level editor isn't implemented yet to the game, but when it's ready, it might bring more longevity to the game.