Explosive physics puzzler Cefore gets a second wind
Hoisted by your own petard
Cool dudes don't look at explosions, but thankfully with a mustache and eyebrows like that, the waddling protagonist of explosive puzzle game Cefore doesn't have to worry about that, so he can fully observe the fruits of his labor.
Despite looking like a lovely hybrid of Besiege and Wii demolition-puzzler Boom Blox, attempts to fund development of Cefore via Kickstarter fell through. Thankfully, Pixelz Games were noticed by publisher Crytivo, and the first early access build of the game rolled out onto Steam today... Kinda.
For some reason, Crytivo have decided not to go directly through Steam, and not to use the Early Access tag on the game. Instead, you can buy the game direct via their official site ($10 or equivalent, with assorted perks for bigger purchases), giving you an optional Steam key and immediate beta access either through their own site, or Steam.
It's nice to see that the game and its developer have found their footing again, although it seems a little bit questionable for the release to be handled this way rather than direct via the storefront. While I have my own thoughts and reservations with the cut Valve take on Steam, making early access available exclusively through a third-party storefront does limit your ability to refund the game if it turns out to be a turkey or (worse yet) non-functional on your PC thanks to the vagaries of PC architecture.
On a lighter note, the game itself looks charming. Boom Blox - as mentioned - is an immediate point of reference for me, as your goal is to clear building sites through careful use of explosives, balloons, blocks and other physics-manipulating items, toppling towers and shattering structures until there's nothing more than knee-high in the area, and I've always been a fan of this kind of semi-open-ended puzzling, even if there is an optional developer-intended solution to be found.
Unlike Boom Blox, your objective isn't entirely destructive, and you have to avoid getting yourself killed or painted into a corner and unable to help extract the blowing blue data-cubes that you're meant to be recovering from the structures you're ruining. Explosions are a 'sometimes food', as Cookie Monster would say. Either way, it looks like something I'd quite like to try sometime, and something that I'll be keeping a closer eye on now that it's in public early access.
Cefore is available via the Crytivo site for $10, and you can see the Steam store page for it here.