Elementalist

Elementalist released in full on Steam on June 3, 2026, a solo-developed puzzle platformer from Dawid Maziarski in which players collect elemental abilities and stack them in a precise sequence to retrieve a target and return to the level's start. Its central hook, that the order in which abilities are collected and used matters as much as which ones are collected, places it firmly in the "sequence puzzle" tradition popularized by games like I Wanna Lockpick, with a meta-puzzle overworld structure that reviewers repeatedly compared to Baba Is You. Its 16-review English pool sits at Positive (15 up, 1 down, 93.75%), and the reviews describe a tightly-designed, deeply satisfying puzzle game whose only serious blemish is a save-related bug that cost at least one player real progress.

Puzzle design draws the pool's most consistent, detailed praise, with reviewers repeatedly zeroing in on the same specific quality: solutions that feel obvious only in hindsight. One detailed reviewer wrote that "the puzzles are fine-tuned, interesting, and tractable," adding that "it's clear a lot of thoughtful work went into making Elementalist's levels," and specifically praised the developer for avoiding "sequence puzzles that are hard solely due to convoluted setups that lack an interesting underlying idea," choosing instead to "focus on elegance and readability." Another reviewer described the format more viscerally: "inject the puzzle juice directly into the veins and it goes straight to the heart," praising "the perfect amount of genuinely off the wall insane solutions so that when you miss something that was obvious the whole time you'll lose your mind about how simple it was." A third reviewer captured the loop succinctly as producing "a lot of 'how didn't I think about this before' moments."

The game's later-world meta-puzzle structure, where the overworld connecting individual levels becomes its own layer of puzzle logic, drew its own specific, enthusiastic praise as the game's most ambitious design swing. One detailed reviewer explained that by the game's sixth world, players unlock "a permanent upgrade that lets you keep any excess element you didn't use when clearing a puzzle," meaning progression itself becomes "very akin to the meta puzzles in Baba Is You." A separate reviewer specifically called out that same section: "the meta puzzles are very well integrated as well, especially loved World 6." That structural ambition wasn't universally frictionless, however: one reviewer felt "the world is a bit maze-like" outside the puzzles themselves, noting that "a lot of navigating the overarching world which connects all the puzzles is just trying to figure out where to go next, and that doesn't really provide any meaningful stimulation."

The hint system drew specific, repeated praise as a well-judged concession to accessibility that doesn't undercut the game's core appeal. One reviewer wrote that puzzles "challenge you, but not require you to solve for x with e = mc^2, and hey, if you feel like they do there's also a hint system," while another simply said "the hint system is really nice for keeping you in the flow." A third reviewer, who got stuck on the notably tricky final level, noted "if you get stuck on it like me, the hints should get you through," a detail worth passing along directly since that same reviewer flagged the final level's readability as the one place the game's usually crisp puzzle logic gets murkier.

The game's generous free demo, covering multiple full worlds rather than a token slice, was cited repeatedly as an unusually confident and player-friendly way to sell a puzzle game on its own merits. One detailed reviewer summarized their entire review by pointing newcomers straight at it: "if you're unsure, just play the demo and let it speak for itself." That confidence extends to the developer's presentation choices more broadly, with one reviewer praising "music, art, writing, and sound" as "all on point in a DIY kind of way," adding "big time I Wanna Lockpick vibes and I am absolutely here for it."

A save-reliability bug is the pool's one serious, concretely-reported technical problem, and it's specific and checkable enough to flag directly even though it comes from a single detailed source. That reviewer explained that "there's no autosave, the game only saves when you use the 'save and exit' button," and that after the game froze and had to be force-quit, "which happened to me twice," they lost significant progress; worse, on relaunching, "the 'continue' button was disabled on the main menu, even though the save file is visible on the new game slot select." That reviewer was explicit about the tradeoff: "without these issues, this game would have my unreserved recommendation, so it's a shame," language that reads as genuine frustration with an otherwise-loved game rather than a dismissal of it, and worth taking seriously given how much real playtime a puzzle game like this demands before its meta-puzzle payoffs arrive.

Taken together, Elementalist is a genuinely excellent, tightly-designed sequence puzzle platformer that earns the I Wanna Lockpick and Baba Is You comparisons reviewers kept reaching for, elegant puzzle logic, a well-judged hint system, and an ambitious meta-puzzle structure that pays off real investment in its later worlds. Its reported save bug is a real risk worth knowing about before a long session, since manual saving is the only safety net on offer, and the maze-like overworld navigation between puzzles will frustrate players who came purely for the puzzle-solving itself. But for eight dollars, backed by an unusually generous demo that lets anyone try before buying, it's an easy recommendation for puzzle fans willing to save often.