Hanano Puzzle 2

I was initially going to post about this and another title in a general, but due to me not having the time and energy for it, and it now being several weeks past, I feel like I have enough to share in what warrants a topic.

Back in April my twitter timeline fed me a few screenshots, taken by a Japanese user @moguragames, of the game Hanano Puzzle 2 (available here on the developer’s itch page) and my first thought was, “Damn, wow, this looks really cute!” (it’s really cute, by the way).

The title screen included in the tweet was on its own enough to pique my curiosity bc, to be honest, this totally nails the look and general aesthetic that I love wrt minimal-palette sprite art

It presents an engaging premise entirely through its mechanics:

  1. Colored and grey blocks are affected by gravity, and can be swapped with whatever is occupying the tile immediately to the block’s left or right (swapping a block with an empty space would simply move the block into the empty space).
  2. If a colored block touches a flower of the same color, the block will then sprout its own flower out of whichever side is marked.

The goal of each puzzle is the make all of the colored blocks bloom flowers, hence the title “Puzzle of Flowers” (it’s so cute!), which was honestly a lot harder than I presumed since the first level just kind of throws the player into some BS. Which is fine. Like, honestly, the game’s tutorial is super bare because it hardly needs one. I love that. You get right into the meat of the game and it feels like the type of genuine honest-to-god bona-fide puzzle that I enjoy solving: one in which all of the information is available to me at the start, and my only goal is to find the solution.

I feel like if this were a game made by a larger team of people, I’d gripe about the difficulty curve essentially being an immediate plateau, but I probably should blame myself for being too dense to absorb the game’s rules on its own terms. Also, if I were to complain about Hanano Puzzle 2 then I would also be complaining about other transport puzzle games like Lup Salad, from which Hanano Puzzle 2 seems to draw most of its inspiration. My biggest mark off this game is probably the music, which is mixed super poorly and gets really ear-grating in the latter half. Unfortunately there are no volume slider options, and there’s only a mute button, so most of this was a silent experience for me. Still, it’s super fun and adorable, and I recommend throwing a buck or two at the developers, which I did. Actually, this was the first game I’d ever bought on itch.io, so I feel like I got way more excited about it than most people should. Here’s some other screens I took:


Added note: every text box in the game has a little wobbly stick person in the corner and it really gets me going (have I mentioned how cute this game is?)

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Oh yeah, there was a mention of this in the puzzle game thread back in January:

Were it not for the aspect ratio, the window size in your screenshots would have fooled me into thinking it was a GBA game running in emulation. It does look super cute though.

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Yeah, the Hanano games (and their cousin Jelly no Puzzle) are among the finest puzzle games I can name. I’d say that if you enjoy this then to definitely check out the first game if you get the chance.

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I tried this game out a few months ago, based on its mention in that other thread. I was impressed with it but I didn’t get very far. Some of the puzzles I did manage to beat took me an embarrassingly long time.

I remember thinking that the setup was simple enough that there are only so many possibilities and I should be catching on faster. Very clever designs; I should try it again.

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I <3 Jelly No Puzzle! happy to learn there’s more where that came from! will check it out

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I’ve only played the first game, and not beaten it; but one of the crazy things about it, and what makes it so fantastic, is how not true this is.

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Every one of Qrostar’s games are amazingly complex. I can’t think of another puzzle game that has me stumped from the second or third level. Each one explores its basic mechanical idea so thoroughly and inventively, that it never feels repetitive or like you’re just going through the same puzzle motions.

This is even more amazing considering Qrostar teamed up with someone to make Hana no puzzle 2 which is basically more of the same of the first one, but somehow still fresh.

These games, frankly, are too hard for me. I feel like I’ve gotten about 25 levels into each one before stalling out. But the hours it takes me to get through them are some of the best puzzle game times I’ve spent. I adore these games (the aesthetic is super attractive too).

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Qrostar is a borderline genius when it comes to puzzle design, I’d argue he is as gifted at this niche of a niche as anyone in gaming is at their own. The other side of this coin, though, is that they ramp up fast and require the player to gain a complete understanding of what is in play to have any chance of making it through to the end.

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also every level introduces new ideas. there’s no “just apply what you already learned” parts. the monster only keeps growing.