Beautiful and engrossing, frustrating at times but never at the expense of the fun of it all. A perfect puzzle game in every sense: the main mechanics work perfectly and flow together seamlessly, and they aren't so obscure that you can't understand what you're looking at in a glance (once you know how it all works). The tutorial onboards the player with ease, but the moment the tether of guidance is ripped away, you freefall into a mind-melting web of paths and possibilities.

It all appears very mathematics-focused, and - I mean, sure it is, but only TECHNICALLY. Your goal in every puzzle is to solve an equation with the numbers on the board, but the cleverness of this game is that the arithmetic isn't the challenge. In the same way that the numbers on a sudoku puzzle can confuse a first-timer into thinking they need an aptitude for the numerical, Dawn of a Soul uses numbers in the same way it uses colours. These are all just symbols, and your optimal path through each maze of lines relies on your understanding of the sequence the symbols need to be encountered in.

There are opportunities for additional souls to be collected on puzzles that have multiple solutions, and sure it may help you in those moments to recognise how many multipliers you need to reach the highest possible score. Math is useful in these moments. But again, this is ultimately simple counting - I can't remember a time I got stuck aiming for an extra multiplier that required me to count higher than the fingers on my hands. This game fries your brain in the same way as an aforementioned sudoku can, taunting you with the knowledge that the answer is all there in front you of. You just can't see it until you manoeuvre your mind around it.

This would get a perfect score from me even if the presentation wasn't so beautiful. The ambient music and the blooming effects and the stellar pixal art and the sparse dialogue, it's all masterful.