Freshly Frosted is a logic-based engineering puzzle game about building conveyor belts through various contraptions to deliver donuts to the right counters. Starting from simple A to B premises and quickly evolving to include multiple toppings, split paths, walls, and portals, Freshly Frosted keeps its puzzles delightful and approachable while easing the player into each of its mechanics. There are 12 chapters in the game, with 12 puzzles each. The first half of each chapter serves as an easier kickstart to understanding the intricacies of a new idea, which is then quickly expanded upon for much harder challenges. While I flew through many of the levels, several stumped me to my core, and developer QAG really got use out of every quirk present in their donut-making process. Even if you get stuck, the game doesn't allow you to be frustrated for long. You can skip a level at basically any time, and you aren't gated from moving to the next chapter if you haven't solved all the previous puzzles. Also, there's a great hint system which starts your conveyors, but doesn't hand you the solution or penalize the hint in the first place. While I wasn't expecting a story at all from Freshly Frosted, there's a light narrative element in the VO, a woman dreaming about an endless donut shop. This definitely added to the game's charismatic and cute aesthetic, but while I think the VO was well-done, it didn't add anything to the experience and could sometimes be annoying. Additionally, a handful of puzzles had solutions that seemed arbitrary, changing seemingly nothing, but getting different results. This is felt most in the "gates" chapter, which I struggled with often visualizing since you cannot edit the conveyors while the donuts are moving on them. Apart from this though, Freshly Frosted is a much appreciated pure puzzle game that is perfect for someone who doesn't want anything too hard or intimidating to relax with for a few hours.

Reviewed on Mar 30, 2023


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