Trails

Trails is a line-drawing puzzle game about giving directions to sand ships across the desert. The paths from each ship may overlap when drawing routes on the map, but you must avoid collisions by making sure that no two ships ever meet on the same tile. It’s a serene game that includes both gentle puzzles and tricky optional content, with reflective tones set by tranquil visuals and an acoustic guitar soundtrack.

The ships start at fixed positions on a grid-based map; they must be guided to specific finish tiles by drawing color-coded paths. Ships cannot visit the same tile twice (i.e. they cannot cross their own path), however the paths from two ships may overlap, as long as they don’t visit the same tile at the same moment. Once you’ve drawn the appropriate lines, you hit play to watch the ships follow their paths in parallel, one tile at a time. If they’re able to make it to their respective ends without any untimely, disastrous crossing, then the puzzle is cleared!

While the core challenge is almost always about avoiding crashes, Trails has some tricks up its sleeve to spice up its turn-based conundrums. For instance, some levels include outposts that must be supplied with food or water, but loading these resources on a ship requires you to stop for a moment on dedicated tiles. These tiles prompt a one-turn delay which sometimes feel like the only barrier to success, until you realize they're actually the crux of a perfect, collision-free route.

The level progression is similar to the all-round model of Patrick’s Parabox. There’s a linear main path which introduces each new mechanic with fairly easy levels, followed by a short difficulty ramp-up, and then it switches to the next mechanic. However, hardened puzzlers may choose to spend more time on many remarkable optional levels, which can be as twisty and clever as the most difficult Cosmic Express challenges.

This description was written by Oriane Tury.