Simian.interface: let this free, quick-fire puzzler give your grey matter a Tuesday massage

A tweak of the mouse is all it takes to resolve Simian.interface's vivid collages into sweet, straight-lined order. Each screen presents you with a scattering of geometric shards that shift according to cursor movement along the x and y axis. You start by resolving cross-eyed double images into a single bright whole, but as the parameters tied to motion on the x and y axis change your mouse twitches can shift the scene's colour palette or balloon shapes to to different sizes.

The correct arrangement changes from level to level. Sometimes you'll be shuffling Tetris silhouettes into into boxy outlines, sometimes you'll have to overlap red, green and blue lenses to form a white shape that completes the symmetry of the scene. Figuring out what the game wants is half of the fun. You get a moment of exploration, a moment of experimentation, and then the sudden satisfaction of wrestling order from chaos. It's a straightforward idea, elegantly rendered. Also, it has a subliminal cat! Did I mention that before? No. Subliminal cat.

You can play Simian.interface for free in your browser at Kongregate and Newgrounds . There's also a pay-what-you-want downloadable version which comes with the soundtrack. Simian.interface is the second game from developers, Vested Interest . You can check out their debut 2D UFO abduction game, OVNI, for free on Kongregate .

Part of the UK team, Tom was with PC Gamer at the very beginning of the website's launch—first as a news writer, and then as online editor until his departure in 2020. His specialties are strategy games, action RPGs, hack ‘n slash games, digital card games… basically anything that he can fit on a hard drive. His final boss form is Deckard Cain.