Redeliver

On May 08, 2023, Redeliver received a major update that essentially re-made the game into a new one, while preserving the app id.

The old version was a short and linear Ren’Py visual novel with a few light puzzle elements and a medieval fantasy setting. The player was able to experience one day from the life of Red – a young girl hired by the Royal Post House to deliver unclaimed letters directly to people’s households. With the goal of reaching her grandma who lives in another district, she had to traverse several regions, delivering letters to inhabitants as she travelled.

The new overhauled version is a sequence of 15 jigsaw puzzles split into three distinct difficulties. The narrative and minigames that existed as part of the gameplay before May 08, 2023, were completely removed, and the game engine was changed to Godot. The only aspect remaining from the old game is the core idea of having Red traverse the regions (which now take the form of jigsaw puzzle levels) to deliver a letter to a now unspecified recipient. A monochromatic color scheme was chosen as a replacement for the colorful art style of the old game.

The jigsaw puzzle levels that now constitute the gameplay are basically minimalistic representations of maps with roads, trees, rocks and other details. Since there is no global picture to reconstruct, finding out what piece connects and where it connects is done based on matching the square-shaped edges of the available pieces to the ones that are already placed, thus completing their patterns.

The first 5 levels belong to the “easy” difficulty, where the puzzles are smaller and all available pieces have a place in the puzzle area. Starting from level 6 (which marks the beginning of the “normal” difficulty levels), the puzzles will spawn “fake” tiles too among the available pieces, which are very similar to the correct ones but should not be used. What makes the last 5 levels “hard” is their increased size and the fact that now the available tiles flicker, thus their pattern will not always be visible to the player.

The achievements were also completely replaced after the update from May 08, 2023, with the previous ones being completely removed and new ones being added in their place. The new achievements will require you to complete all 15 levels without making any placement mistakes and also click on all flower and animal types present in the intermediary levels found between the three distinct difficulty groups of regular levels. After the game’s completion, an extra set of 10 puzzles is unlocked, but completing these is not necessary for the achievements.

I find the modest price of $1 quite fair for a short game as Redeliver is. While I much rather preferred the old version of the game because of its narrative style and minigames, the new one is equally enjoyable, but it takes substantially less to complete (~30 mins).