Null Hypothesis

Null Hypothesis is a puzzle game full of colorful gems floating in an empty void. You must match gems together by understanding their underlying logic. The game is unique in that it doesn’t require any kind of spatial reasoning at all — the distances between gems have functionally no relevance. It’s an odd, strangely compelling gridless puzzle game with a dash of rule discovery.

Each level of Null Hypothesis presents you with a collection of brightly colored gems floating around in an inky black void. Clicking multiple gems draws the selected gems together like a magnet. If you select three like-colored gems, they all disappear. Your goal is to erase everything and leave only emptiness, at which point a new set of gems floats in from offscreen to seamlessly transition into the next level.

These extremely simple rules are soon complicated by new types of objects that can create and destroy gems in different ways. The game tutorializes nothing, allowing you to discover how everything works entirely by yourself. Null Hypothesis increasingly begins to feel like you’re toying with the subatomic particles of some alien universe, as you’re taught to recognize specific patterns and common paths that lead to victory.

Null Hypothesis has no story. The only sounds you’ll hear are the clinking of gems as you select them and as they bump into each other. The graphics are extremely minimal, although when paired with the dark void they feel oddly mysterious.

Null Hypothesis has no hints, but if you’re ever truly stuck on a level you can skip ahead to any future level using arrows that navigate between them. And although Null Hypothesis doesn’t remotely resemble a standard grid-based sokoban game, it does have an undo.

This description was written by Asher Stone.