Sumeru

This game is a hidden gem! Sumeru has a unique charm with its beautiful hand-drawn art and tranquil atmosphere. The gameplay is simple yet satisfying, with puzzles that are enjoyable without being too challenging. Each level feels like a journey, and I love the calm vibe throughout. A perfect game for when you want to relax and explore something artistic and peaceful.

Sumeru is a Physics puzzle game with some platform elements wherein you use elements to draw lines, objects, and items to solve the puzzles. It plays a lot like Nihilumbra meets Journey, actually. I found it a relatively relaxing little game with somewhat challenging puzzles based on physics, for example one puzzle may have you trying to hold a door open and another might have you launching the character, Yun, directly. The gameplay tends to change its objectives up every so often, and even the game style changes to give your mind a break from the platform puzzles. The hint/solution system is unique too, in that you have to solve a much easier sliding puzzle in order to get the blueprint - or, you can forgo that and do it your own way to see if you can solve it yourself. It's always available if you're stuck, however, which I find nice as some of the puzzles can get quite fiendish.

The artwork is really, really pretty - it reminds me of the best scenes of games like Hollow Knight or Okami. And like those games, the music's quite nice, too. It's quite polished for the most part too, having only a handful of controls to master. It's hard to believe a small team made this game, and even harder to believe it's only $4 for the 6 or so hours of gameplay you get out of it. Most puzzle games like this are a lot more pricey, but not this one, which makes it about right in my opinion for what you get. Sadly, not much replayability unless you want to solve the stages in different ways, but some might be into that. Depending how tough a time you have with it, the game can take shorter or longer, but you will be able to 100% this game if you're clever and stick with it, meaning it's easy to get completion as well as the card drops.

There is a jump command, but it's not very high, meaning it can be difficult to reach some platforms. The other thing I noticed is that sometimes, the mouse controls are "sticky", making it hard to draw the lines. Also, for some people, the fact that the achievements are simply earned by beating the game normally and that it's only about 6 hours long might be a deal-breaker, but like... it's only $4, and it's a really decent puzzle game for that price, should have a higher rating IMHO. Especially if you enjoyed Nihilumbra, buy this for yourself or a friend - it's cheap, the achievements are super easy to 100%, and it's very pretty. What do you really have to lose if you like puzzle games?

This game is extremely hard. The puzzles themselves require somewhat "perfection" in your guesswork. It is visually appealing. Though it also makes no reference at all really to Sumeria in story. As to which I bought this game for, as I like Sumer history a lot. So in that respect, alongside how hard it was, I found this game unappealing. I finished it though... took a huge amount of time even with the hints to draw perfectly what they had shown. Found it pretty frustrating due to needing to draw absolutely perfectly. Likely suited only to those who liked Art class.

The main mechanic of this game is that you have to draw your way outta the level and this game does a poor job at that.

Sumeru is a cute physics-based puzzle game where you draw things to help you navigate the levels. The concept is pretty neat and the first few levels were really fun.

A few levels in, however, I started having trouble solving the puzzles. I looked at the hint a couple of times, thinking maybe I was doing something wrong, but the hint basically showed the same solution I'd come up with. Herein lies the problem with the game: it gets really frustrating to know you're doing everything right, and still having to retry a level over and over again.

The controls are also a bit clunky: the pattern you draw with your mouse is a little thicker than the end result when you let go. having to take that into account can be frustrating at times. Especially because some of the more precision-based puzzles are also 'timed' (for example, keeping a door open on both sides, part of it fast enough to avoid getting poisoned).

Not all is doom and gloom of course. The atmosphere is really neat, the soundtrack accompanies it really well, and I love the art style. The environment looks great.

Overall I feel like this game has potential, but I can't currently recommend it because of how frustrating it is to play.

Works great on Linux (Ubuntu 16.04) in case anyone was wondering.

Sometimes game is really frustrating. Game with no idea no screenplay. Only solving annoying puzzles, sorry I haven't got the idea of the game even when I won the game.

help me !_!

When I saw Sumeru for the first time, I knew that was for me. To make sure, I played the demo version. I got charmed by the graphics - artwork-like, ethereal - and the plot told only by the illustrations. Moreover, I used to play similar puzzle games when I was a small girl. Kind of nostalgia vibe here.

THE STORY
A traveler named Yun finds a gem which takes him to the Sumerian World. Through many puzzles – more or less complicated - he must find the exit. There are beautifully done cutscenes which, like I said, contain the illustrations of certain plot events. Be aware you’ll see no dialogues.

THE GAMEPLAY
We can draw bridges, levers or even swings to help Yun go from one point to another. Also, we get the powers which can be combined together. When there's a trouble, we can find some tips in the right bottom corner. Of course, only if we solve the puzzles containing them. Creative? Indeed, but annoying at the same time. Getting some hint illustrations can take as much time as the main puzzles do.
There was not much music, but more of unsettling sounds and silent melodies.

THE GRAPHICS
I said so: ETHEREAL! Smooth. Beautiful. Yet, still simple. No 3D magic. And that’s pretty fitting for Sumeru. I didn’t complain. And again: wait for the plot illustrations! It’s up to the player how to interpret certain in-game events.

THE SUMMARY
Sumeru seems to meet all the conditions needed for a decent puzzle game. I didn’t get bored, yet, I was irritated many times. It’s probably something typical when you reach those more difficult parts of any game like that. Do I recommend Sumeru? Yes, but bear in mind it’s kinda specific with its vibe. At least for me. It’s still relaxing, but unsettling at some moments. Not convinced? Then how about the achievements?

1. Sit for half an hour on a difficult level
2. Finally find a solution
3. Execution next
4. Fail for another half an hour
5. Get too frustrated
6. Get help with a clue
7. "I am so f***ing stupid."

Nice little game and good concept.
The controls are nice, the music fits and I think the puzzles are overall well done.
However, I would recommend buying it on sale. Its not really worth 7 euro.

Fun idea and nice art. However the difficulty spikes from one puzzle to the other that it is just not fun. Some puzzles have a very tiny solution space, which makes solving them a nightmare.

was a really good concept, but not done very well. The controls are either too touchy or not touchy enough, the physics almost seem a little broken, the character doesn't move the way you try to control.... Overall, I just wouldn't recommend it.

I felt like physics were inconsistent in some levels which makes you frustrate.
Art is nice, the puzzles itselves are challenging, music is pretty much same all levels, mostly environment sounds.
I would say give it a shot.

A wonderful game. Very relaxing. Lots of variety to the puzzles.

A mostly nice puzzle platformer.

There is no score, even the acheivements are all based on level progression. I like the first clause of that sentence, but the second clause isn't desireable; acheivements should be mostly based on challenges beyond core gameplay. So feel free to use the "hint" system, you won't be penalized. The hints are block-switch puzzles, most of them I didn't need to solve to see what it was showing that I should do, most I solved anyway, just for the change of puzzle type.

The core mechanic is free-hand line drawing. The max length of the lines, (which varies by scene,) is the main limiter; sometimes they're barely long enough if you are super precise, sometimes there is all sorts of room for flourishes. You can also walk back & forth, & in some circumstances levitate. Some levels, especially toward the end, have completely different mechanics.

Sometimes aggravating, sometimes boring, generally pretty decent.

I recommend. But if you're an action junky, run, because there are only a couple scenes near the end which might almost satisfy you.

An enjoyable and challenging (at least for me, it is) drawing puzzle platform game.

100% Achievements obtainable by completing the game.

I really wanted to like this, and at first all was well, but the issues just mounted up and it cant scrape by with a recommend.

Some of the problems:
-The hint system isnt a hint system, it just tells you the solution. (Though some of the levels are so obscure in their contraptions perhaps thats not all bad.)
-The game is minimal to the point of irritation and lacks basic options or any meaningful story, this is most annoying with controls that overlap character movement with line positioning meaning you can accidentally screw up with a miss click.
-The last levels in particular seemed to be bugged, slowing down time when they shouldnt and actually allowing me to do things that I wasnt meant to be able to.
-It looks fine with nice stylised art, but the pseudo 3D compounds issues with drawing precisely.
-The sound isnt great even as little of it as there is, it mostly just played an ambient loop that varied in volume for no reason and you could hear it glitch whenever it looped round.

but all of this is minor compared to the biggest problem. This isnt so much a puzzle game, youll spend far more time implementing the answers, and implementing them with an incredibly imprecise and consequently intensly frustrating game system.

-The lines you draw are fat, cant be drawn in areas they appear they should be able to be drawn.
-They have attrocious collision detection so no matter how much you try to get pixel perfect drawings when the line is produced it will still settle, sometimes up to millimetres in to place.
-The line doesnt follow edges, itll just stop drawing when you get too near and as mentioned above, too near is impossible to tell with its terrible collisions.
-Lines will sometimes be produced with the end missing if the game deems it to have moved in to a collision at some point (Even on screens that appear static.)
-Sometimes they dissapear on a hazard that they are clearly not touching.

There were a half dozen times I checked the solution to find out what I was doing wrong, and it turned out, nothing. I was doing nothing wrong, I just needed to try over, and over, and over again until it happens to all fall in to place just right and work.

With the vast majority of my time spent wrestling with the system, it makes a promising game tedious and whenever progress can be significantly lost, very frustrating.


Ive been pretty harsh here, it can be clever at times, and there are a couple of mini-games that are quite fun. There is enough interesting about it to take a look when its cheap so consider it in a good sale, but ultimately it just wasnt all that fun.

I was worried in the beginning, BUT ! the game gets u in ...................... :)

I'm on the fence on this one. The idea of Crayon Physics meets platforming intrigued me. The puzzles are pretty good, and the devs are generous (maybe a little too much) to provide the solutions to each puzzle in the form of a jigsaw puzzle in-game. But often, I'll have a solution in mind but not be able to execute it, and I can't tell whether the fault is with my solution or with the pixels not being aligned just right. To get a piece of a solution to work usually takes a dozen tries. This isn't helped by the fact that the character can't seem to swim in shallow waters or hop over an obstacle that's just a little too high.

A good concept, but I'd only recommend it when it's on sale.

A unique puzzle platformer where you can draw lines into existence with various properties. It lacks polish in terms of presentation, but it succeeds with its gameplay and is well priced.

This game has a really a good physics based concept, & exceeded my expectations. Definitely more of a puzzler than platformer where walking & jumping is minimal, with an emphasis on creating bridges, levers, swings, ramps, even catapults to manipulate your way forward. Even though I can’t freehand draw with a mouse, my sloppy lines would eventually find a way to work.

There are a few other types of puzzles along the way, with the later more complex levels being engaging & quite juicy. A bit short, a bit sublime, & a must for physics-puzzle gamers.