I saw this game pop up in my Twitter feed this weekend thanks to Justin Ma of Subset Games. His comparison to Tetris Effect is what immediately drew me in. After scrolling through the Mixolumia thread and watching some gameplay, it didn’t take long for me to snatch up a copy. It is the perfect game to play after countless hours in a huge open world game like Ghost of Tsushima. Mixolumia is clean, simple, and addictive.
Mixolumia is a drop puzzler that is a fusion of the aforementioned puzzler titan Tetris and Puzzle League. I even get some Puyo Puyo vibes. It’s all about stacking the board and clearing same-colored blocks by lining them up with three (or more) in-a-row. It works extremely well with a controller, but would be even better if it allowed users to map the controls however they saw fit.
The soundtrack is also generated as you play, with options to swap soundtracks or even have composers make soundtracks for the game. It’s got tons of color palettes and accessibility options to boot.
What struck me as the most interesting bit wasn’t the game itself, but the fact that there is an entire Twitter thread following its development, which started back on January 28, 2019. I always find insight into game development to be both fun and educational to explore. Even if you don’t pick up the game, reading through its development is worth your time.
Mixolumia is only on PC and Mac at the moment through itch.io. I haven’t tried rotating my screen, but I feel like the game was made for a “tate” mode. I think it’d be right at home on mobile and especially on Switch, which would be able to support all those features. Hopefully, davemakes considers those and other platforms for the future. Mixolumia is a visual puzzler treat that deserves to be as widely available as possible.