Energy Balance
Nintendo Switch

Developed By : Sometimes You
Published By : Evgeniy Kolpakov
Category : Puzzle, Board Game
Release Date : Jan 16, 2018

How often can a video game make you feel like you’re back in school? I don’t mean the atmosphere as a whole, the camaraderie in your social circles. No, I mean hunkered down over a desk, pitched on your elbow, scratching your brain trying to solve the problem before you in math class. Energy Balance does just that with a slight twist : the fact that it’s a video game makes it that much more enjoyable.

In Energy Balance, while on a mission, your spaceship breaks down after encountering an unknown space anomaly. To get it back up and running again, you’re tasked with getting the systems back up and running by arranging power units around a shaped grid, to line up in the correct order to complete equations.

Each level presents you with a puzzle, as pictured above, with totals that need to be met in the blue-veined boxes outside of the grid. Within that box are two numbers. On the left of the slash is the current total based on the power cells you’ve arranged, and on the right the total that needs to be met. From there, all you need to do is find the right order.

As you progress through the game, the levels get harder and harder, and are broken up by short text-dialogue screens between the pilot of the spaceship and her feline companion. These segments are very short, usually only a handful of screens of texts at most, and are there simply to push forward what little bit of story this game has. But, story or not, this game breaks down to one simple fact : How well can you do at math?

The game is nice as far as displaying the current totals, so it’s not as tasking to solve these puzzles. You can see where your total is, where it needs to be, and determine if you need to try and squeeze higher or lower numbers into the equation. Most times, every power cell on the grid will be in play, while other levels include extras just to throw you off a little.

Outside of the math-based mechanics, the graphics in Energy Balance are really well done, but the highlight is most certainly the music. Together, these aspects combine for a great experience through space.

Whether you’re a math fiend or not, if you like puzzle games you’ll like this one. It’s short and sweet, a perfect game to pick up for just a few minutes and tick away at a couple levels. However, the scope on this game is very narrow, because there are absolutely no other elements to extort while playing. This game, is fully and completely a puzzle game, and a math puzzle game at that. So if you find yourself on the outside of the puzzle game fandom, then you may not care enough to get this ship up and running again. But, if you do enjoy puzzles, and enjoy messing with numbers, then for the price it’s definitely worth it.

As for the games playability, while Energy Balance supports all play modes, it is best if played handheld since it allows for use of the touchscreen. This, in turn, makes swapping around the power cells significantly faster and easier, making for a much smoother experience while playing