Mystic Pillars is a brand new puzzle game by an indie studio called Holy Cow Productions. Holy Cow Productions is a small game developer based in Bangalore, India and they have been releasing PC, console and mobile games. Their latest release is Mystic Pillars which is a puzzle game that features a narrative-driven story as you solve puzzles to free villages in the kingdom of Zampi. We got our hands on an early access build of Mystic Pillars and this is our preview of this mind-tickling puzzle game.
Mystic Pillars puts you in the shoes of a traveler who arrives in the kingdom of Zampi and is contacted by a spirit. The spirit then guides you through eight unique villages as you solve puzzles and help the village get rid of drought. As soon as you boot the game, you will notice that Mystic Pillars features very beautiful art. Since the developer is based in India, you will notice a prominent Indian blend in the design of the world of Zampi as well as the characters. Even the lore of the game is based around Indian lore and culture as there are mentions of different Indian gods quite frequently in the game.
The Kingdom of Zampi has fallen prey to an unholy drought and villages are now dry because of mystic pillars appearing everywhere. These mystic pillars have blocked the passage of water and you must remove these mystic pillars to allow the water to flow freely once again. The Kingdom of Zampi was once a prosperous one however the drought has brought the kingdom down to its knees and everything now lies in shambles.
The beautiful art of Mystic Pillars is the first thing that you will notice right after booting the game. The menu of the game resembles much like any other mobile or tablet game we normally see with the levels forming a path leading to the next levels. Each level you complete unlocks the next level and goes on until you complete all levels in a village. As you continue to complete level after level, the water will continue to reach further places inside the village thus giving access of the water to everyone in the village and making their life easy again. There are also some cutscenes between levels that tell you more about the background of the game.
The gameplay of Mystic Pillars sees you destroying the different pillars in each location. To destroy these pillars, you must match the number of gems in each pillar as shown in a small picture in each level. You choose the pillars which have the gems and then click on any other empty pillar to move the gems to that particular level. The number of gems moved to the new pillar depends upon the distance of the donor pillar and the new pillar.
For example, I have to move gems to a pillar which is three pillars away and the fourth one is the destination pillar, this will move 4 gems from the current pillar. Similarly, if the pillar where I have to move the gem is right next to the current pillar, only one gem will move to the new one. Using this mechanic, you have to exactly match the number of gems in all of the pillars within the allowed number of moves. This sounds really easy but some of the puzzles are extremely difficult and will really test your mettle.
For me, the initial villages were easy and I did not have much trouble solving them however as I progressed to the later villagers, solving puzzles became a nightmare in the given moves. As of writing this preview of Mystic Pillars, I still have to complete some of the later stages as I was stuck in them pretty badly. However, this bad is not in a really bad way. I really enjoyed the unique art and lore of Mystic Pillars. It is not every day that we get to see video games based on Indian art and lore. Holy Cow Productions has done a really good job when it comes to game design especially its art direction. If you live in India, you will be glad to know that the developer has also included Kannada as a supported language in the game.
The only drawback is the menu design where the game looks like a mobile or a tablet game instead of a PC game. I’ve noticed a lot of indie developers use the traditional Angry Birds style menu for the levels but I find this pretty annoying in PC games. For a mobile game, this menu style can work where users have to interact with a touch screen and there is not enough space to play around with however with a PC game, I think the level design could be better instead of using a mobile game interface.
Mystic Pillars is a great puzzle game that not only looks pretty but the art design and lore of the game is pretty unique. The gameplay is solid as well because the puzzles will keep you busy for a good time. There are eight villages to solve in the game and each of them offers new lore, additional challenges and more mind-bending puzzles for you to solve in the game. The official launch of Mystic Pillars is in March 2020 and I highly recommend that you try it out. I am sure you will love the art style and puzzles in the game. A Steam page is now live for the game and you can add it to your Wishlist.
