Friendship Is Full Of Meetings And Partings

I don’t know what it is about puzzle games that makes me keep trying and buying them. I get frustrated when I can’t figure them out, and even when I do, I feel like a dope for taking as long as I do. None of which stopped me from getting ilomilo through Xbox Live Arcade this spring.

Two friends, Ilo (in red) and Milo (in blue), keep trying to meet in the park, and keep finding themselves separated. There are 4 chapters, each with 9 levels (plus 3 bonus levels if you find all the safkas, little creatures that come in three colors and are sitting somewhere in each level). The objective is to reunite Ilo and Milo, preferably in as a few steps (or cubes) as possible. There are other little bonuses, records and photos that unlock music and gallery items respectively, if you want, but those aren’t necessary. Fortunately for me, ilomilo does not require you complete every single level before you can get to the next chapter, which puts it one up on Braid in my book. Tell me I can’t unlock the last level unless I get all the stupid puzzle pieces, grumble, grumble.

The game has a sad undercurrent. The intros that set up each chapter are a little silly (for the underwater chapter 2, we learn ilo and milo grew so sad at the thought of being separated at the end of the day their tears formed a lake and they each fell in), but in each puzzle, there are these little spheres all over the place. As you collect them, a gauge in the upper left corner fills. Once it’s full, you receive a piece of a picture, which also has a bit of correspondence between an Ilona and a Milton. They start out well enough, reminiscing about fun times in the park. By the third chapter, Milton is wondering why Ilona no longer responds. Then he gets a letter from the address saying Ilona doesn’t live there, and then he gets one from her saying she feels trapped, and wondering why he stopped writing. Combined with Sebastian’s (this odd fellow who appears when you walk on top of his cube house to dispense advice on how to proceed) story of the Fox and the Huntsman, there was a pervasive sense of doom. Every level you guide them back together, and then they promptly lose each other again. I was more than a little concerned this was going to end up as the wistful dream of one of them as they die, or something equally downbeat.

A bit about the puzzles, since that’s what you have to solve, after all. The levels are various combinations of cubes in paths and shapes. To reunite them, they have to be on the same side of adjacent cubes. If ilo is on the “top” side, and milo on the “left” side of a cube, it doesn’t count. You can only go onto a different face where there are specific paths, marked with a little red lip on the edge with a yellow arrow on it. There are also different types of specialized cubes to help. Some are basic, a single cube to help you bridge a small gap. Others will stretch vertically or horizontally depending on where you place them. Some will fly (and the direction they go depends on your orientation when you set them.) Some act like a trapdoor, letting you get on the underside of the surface you’re on. There’s a block that makes other, unnavigable blocks useable, within a certain radius, and another that rotates. It tends to require a lot of thinking in three dimensions, something I’m only occasionally good at, judging by this game. I can usually see what I need to do, I just can’t figure out how to accomplish it. The flying blocks in particular were a problem. I found chapter 4 (which focuses on the rotating and the transforming ones) much easier than 3 (which is heavily into the flying blocks). But if you can complete one puzzle, it unlocks others adjacent to it, so you at least can skip one that has you stumped and still advance.