Only Sliding

I wanted it, I got it. After the incredible Recursed, Portponky’s next game is finally here.
Only Sliding is about… yeah, sliding blocks puzzles. I love this kind of puzzles, they were my favorite in Professor Layton and it’s pretty rare to stumble upon good ones. Like ok, there are mobile games dedicated to them but their quality is usually not really good.

However this time, the puzzles are not about bringing a piece to the exit: you’re asked to rearrange the pieces in each puzzle so that they’re all placed in the correct spots indicated by yellow markers.
Each time you move a piece, it slides and only stops when it encounters an obstacle. This is also true for your little blue cube character, because Only Sliding isn’t just a menu with puzzles.
The game consists of a network of tunnels spanning 4 areas linked by a hub. The puzzles are self-contained and directly integrated into the walls of the tunnels, you just need to reach a puzzle marker to “unlock” the corresponding puzzle’s blocks and start solving it. Once you’ve solved certain puzzles, they unlock blocks you can use in the tunnels to progress further.

I was absolutely sure of one thing before playing Only Sliding : the puzzle design would be great. And yup, there’s absolutely no filler to be found in this game. It’s a collection of very, VERY small and intricate puzzles that, despite being extremely basic at first glance, actually require a lot of precise steps to be solved. Only Sliding is about showing the true potential of simple block sliding, there is literally no special mechanic. There are usually 2-3 pieces to deal with in each puzzle, I don’t think I’ve seen a puzzle with more than 5 pieces. But don’t get it twisted, more pieces doesn’t necessarily mean harder. One of the puzzle in the game actually forced me to go look for a small hint (yeah I know, that’s a rare event), and it only featured 2 pieces.

Which brings us to the difficulty… yes, this game is hard. A few puzzles near the end are even complete nightmares.
The puzzle design is made so that you always end up in paradoxical situations, finding the only correct sequence is very tricky. The pieces need to help and block each other, but it’s very hard to anticipate things. You can deduce the position in which a piece will eventually have to be… but anticipating several steps in advance how the pieces will block each other is another story.

Only Sliding is not a perfect game, though. While puzzle-wise it perfectly delivers, there are a number of things that make the game tedious.
Starting with the absence of undo button, which is something I can understand. Yes, it forces people not to blindly manipulate the pieces. But any input error means you have to start everything all over again, because as I said, the pieces need to precisely help each other. It’s so frustrating when that happens.
And I’d argue that the really hard puzzles are already so convoluted, an undo button would not make them easier in the slightest. Thankfully, the puzzles are so small that yeah, no undo button is a problem, but not a critical one.

What I truly found annoying was the lack of quality of life such as a map, or fast travel. When you get stuck on a puzzle, you either try harder or move on… but it’s so annoying to backtrack just to try a puzzle again. The layout of the tunnels is easy to remember and there are shortcuts, but that’s not enough.

The secret world is the worst though. The puzzles are excellent, but looking for it is an absolute pain. You’re supposed to notice that each area has, somewhere on one of the background blocks, an imperceptible shadow of a duck engraved. You then need to reach it, it teleports you to one of the parts of the secret world. I did find the first secret entrance completely randomly and didn’t understand why it happened. I couldn’t even deduce the duck shadow thing because the duck is colored once you enter it for the first time (what a weird sentence, sorry).

The concept is good but the ducks are just impossible to see, so I had to watch the guide.
Now, reaching a duck always requires solving a big puzzle using the blocks you unlock in the tunnels. Which is a great idea, but what do you think happens if you then get stuck on a puzzle in the secret world?
Well yeah, you either try harder ooooor… move on! So you have to undo the duck puzzle and return the blocks where they originally were. And if you want to retry the secret puzzle again, you need to solve everything again. Gah what a pain seriously, a map with fast travel for each major teleport point would solve everything and make the game far less frustrating.
I can see the added value of the adventure side over a simple menu, but then the quality of life needs to follow.

Anyway, the puzzles are so well-crafted that I can only say the game is very good. It’s just a shame that it gets tainted by stupid flaws like that.
Recommended, just know you’ll need to be patient sometimes.

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Developer: Portponky
Publisher: Shambles Software
Platform: Steam – Windows/Linux
Release Date: April 4, 2025