Recently there has been a rise in games that are more compilations than single works of creation. Things like the Dread X Collection show that there's a lot of value to be found in a taster menu approach to indie games. It's a trend I've been happy to see, as many genres benefit greatly from brevity (particularly horror) but at the same time need to provide players with enough of a value proposition to justify their purchase.

Applying this approach to a puzzle game instead is, on paper, a fantastic idea. There are many concepts and mechanics for puzzlers that are amazing for a little bit but soon become tiresome, so collecting a few of those together and making them an hour each sounds great, but unfortunately, Please, Touch the Artwork fails its premise on a few fronts. Its most grievous sin is making it pretty obvious which puzzle selection (or "gallery", as the game refers to them) was thought of first and making the other two feel like tacked on filler.

It's a real shame, because the gallery in question, the De Stijl movement, is great stuff. The levels gradually introduce new mechanics to a simple idea, eventually combining them to produce some surprisingly tricky problems. Your reward for beating a few levels is another factoid about the movement that the game's aesthetic is born of and the artists behind it. Don't get me wrong, it's nothing revolutionary, but in that first hour of gameplay are the seeds for something interesting, a way to make art education truly immersive and involve the player in the creation process that they're studying.

Unfortunately, the other two galleries are, not just worse than De Stijl, but actively bad. The Boogie Woogie levels are dull and ugly, the type of puzzles you play on your phone on the toilet paired with a nonsense narrative. The New York gallery is the most insulting though, an overlong selection of mazes that barely qualify as puzzles. While it's better looking than Boogie Woogie, it's a real exercise in wasting your time and I found all goodwill built up by The Style completely burned away before even the halfway point of New York.

I'm disappointed, as I think modern art is greatly maligned and something like Please, Touch the Artwork had the potential to recontextualise it in a varied and fun package. While an attempt is made towards this goal, two thirds of the three hour game is dedicated to generic crap. There's definitely something here in this idea, but it's not executed upon half as well as it should be.

This game is incredibly cool!! Many of these puzzle styles feel unique in a way that may mean I'm not experienced with puzzles, but may also mean this developer has found a fun new style of simple puzzles that are infinitely generatable. The presentation is top notch, the simple colors and lines along with the art museum theming is super cool, the music and sometimes narration lends to the experience, and the pacing and small touches make it super pleasant to play. There's not a ton to say, just an extremely solid puzzle game with a ton of content, if that's appealing to you play it. They got a little out of my league pretty quick, but very fun regardless.

Voilà un jeu qui aurait pu se contenter de prendre l’art comme enrobage thématique, mais ce n’est pas le cas. Il explore véritablement le concept d’art, en nous mettant parfois à la place de l’artiste peintre et d’autres fois en métaphorisant les mécaniques de jeu pour véhiculer une expérience esthétique. C’est tout à son honneur ! Please, Touch the Artwork contient trois « expositions », trois volets dans lesquels est présenté un style abstrait de peinture où l’on doit reconstituer une toile incomplète en suivant des règles qui contraignent l’application de couleurs et le tracé de lignes. L’abstraction des peintures va de pair avec celle des mécaniques de jeu, notamment durant l’exposition « New York », où l’on est amené à naviguer à la manière de Pac-Man sur des traits de pinceau formant un espace labyrinthique. Cette exposition est d’ailleurs la plus réussie des trois. L’objectif est de récupérer dans le labyrinthe les lettres de vers d’un poème à propos de l’expérience d’arriver dans une grande ville et d’entretenir ainsi une relation à distance. La juxtaposition des lignes évoque un gigantesque réseau urbain qui se transforme jusqu’à nous engloutir ou presque. Chaque « toile » crée un espace dans lequel se perdre, servant d’appui aux vers et renforçant l’expressivité du poème.

Malheureusement, les expositions sont inégales en ce sens que le lien entre l’art et le jeu n’est pas toujours noué étroitement, en particulier lorsqu’une toile prend la forme d’un puzzle à résoudre et que l’on doit trouver la réponse au problème posé par le designer. En offrant de la résistance, en ponctuant notre « visite au musée » de difficultés, il semble que le jeu incarne une contradiction qu’il promet pourtant d’abolir. Après tout, le plaisir de voir de l’art, c’est celui de laisser libre cours à l’imagination et à la contemplation, c’est s’arrêter devant une toile et repartir quand bon nous semble. D’avoir la bonne réponse ou la bonne interprétation importe peu. Un jeu qui emprunte à l’art devrait alors se détacher des notions de succès et d’échec, libérer son public de tout impératif de performance. Si l’innovation artistique du jeu vidéo est de nous permettre de toucher l’œuvre, nous devrions pouvoir le faire avec un désintéressement total, sans conformité à un objectif prédéfini.

All puzzles completed. A puzzle game in three parts, each set of scenarios in Please, Touch the Artwork is based on interaction with a piece of abstract geometric art. The three puzzle types are quite distinct - one (probably the most challenging) requiring the player to replicate a given pattern of coloured regions, with touching a region changing the colour of all adjacent regions, a second based around parsing the path of a character through a network of straight-line roads and intersections, and the final being direct navigation of line mazes. Progression through each set tells a very simple story, providing justification for the scenarios but not really adding much to the overall experience. There are a few interesting ideas here and the game is certainly well-presented, but there's certainly nothing here that advances the puzzle game genre.