Michal Pawlowski of Hamster On Coke Game Lab, developer of such lovely puzzle experiences as Zenge ($1.99) and Art Of Gravity ($0.99) and co-developer of the oddly satisfying button-pushing puzzler PUSH ($1.99), has announced his new project called Scalak and is currently looking for some more beta test participants in our forums. Like his previous work, Scalak utilizes simple game mechanics but layers them together to create an increasingly deeper experience, and of course it’s all wrapped up in really striking visuals and sounds. In this case the mechanics revolve around placing shapes into gaps on cube-based objects, rotating the object and even combining multiple pieces to find the right place for everything. I’m bad at explaining it but it’s pretty clear how Scalak works in the following trailer.
What I love about Hamster On Coke Game Lab (besides the deliciously absurd name) is that they’re putting out games that have a solid gameplay foundation that would be fun just on its own, but they take the time to make sure the whole experience has something to offer besides just working out your brain. Zenge could have been a great Tangram-like sliding puzzler with just level after level of blank shapes, but instead you actually piece together parts of these gorgeous images that paint a larger story for the game. Or Art Of Gravity would have been just fine if all you did was figure out how to complete each level, but instead there’s these almost hypnotic explosions of tiny voxels as each piece blows apart in an elaborate sequence. And PUSH, well, it’s just stupidly fun to push buttons. I feel like Scalak will follow in these same footsteps, so look for it to arrive sometime in April or May for $2 with no ads or IAP on iOS, Android, and PC.