Cosmic Express collides with Sokobond in new game puzzle Sokobond Express
Last night was the night when two became one
What happens when you combine two great puzzle games? You get one puzzle game which makes me, an accredited professional fool, feel dizzy with noncomprehension. That game is Sokobond Express, which launched yesterday and combines the atom-shoving chemistry of Sokobond with the route-planning puzzling of Cosmic Express. So you have to draw paths around a grid to gather atoms to correctly build a desired molecule. That's all. Just molecular chemistry and pathing, at the same time. Oh, my poor foolish head.
Sokobond Express challenges you to create chemical compounds by connecting atoms on little atomic models by laying out routes to navigate grids with the atoms scattered about. You're building a little process. So like Sokobond with trains instead of shoving. Or like Cosmic Express with molecules instead of passengers. It all looks very clever, which I am not. Can I interest anyone in some alliteration instead? I'm good at that, sometimes.
While Sokobond Express is coming from Draknek And Friends, the publishing brand of Cosmic Express designer and Sokobond co-designer Alan "Draknek" Hazelden, this game is led by someone else. The designer is Jose Hernandez, who has made quite a few other puzzle games, which you can find on Itch.
Sokobond Express is out now on Steam and Itch.io for Windows, Mac, and Linux. A 10% launch discount brings the price down to £11.51/€13.31/$13.49 until the 7th of March.
Disclosure/COOL BONUS: One of the game's writers is Pip Warr, our former RPS colleague and my dear friend. Pip, you know how I am, should I play this? It feels like I'll come griping to you about being stuck and you'll go "Al, you've clearly seen the credits, so why are you coming to me about puzzle design?" and I'll go "Uggggghhhhhh" and you'll go "Want to PowerWash something?" and I'll go "Yes please" so should we skip to that step? We still haven't hosed down Lara Croft's theropod, not to mention Marty McFly's vest.