Flood of Light from Indienova is a very charming and relaxing puzzle game on Nintendo Switch that you have to play find out why in our Flood of Light review!

 

In Flood of Light, you control a girl who ends up arriving at a city that has been completely covered by water – flooded if you will. This mysterious girl has the power of controlling light, and this will be the main gameplay mechanic you will employ during this short but fun, relaxing and charming experience. You hold the key to saving the city, since the girl’s power will help to solve the many puzzles you find, and each one will make the water recede slowly so that you can save the city.

The controls for Flood of Light are very easy to understand. You can move with the left analog stick while the right one is used for moving the cursor around. The A button is for interacting with objects or to confirm a selection. The Y button is used to absorb light, and you can cancel this action by pressing down on the D-Pad. The X button can be pressed to make a lantern later in the game. The R button can be pressed while the cursor is on top of the girl to then use the cursor to guide the light balls around her, an ability that will be applied to solving the many puzzles. To be able to move forward you will need to bring a light ball to the black altar-looking structures in each area, and it is thanks to this that you will find the puzzles that ramp up in difficulty as you progress, eventually leading you to the Sky Pedestals that will significantly lower the water level as you activate them.

 

You will get to interact with some charming robots during your quest that will provide some extra information as well as some helpful clues. It is thanks to the robots that you will learn that all humans have evacuated Hope City because of the flood. One robot will also inform you that there are seven Sky Pedestals covered by the flood that must be activated – eight really since the robot will reveal this to you after you activate the first Sky Pedestal in the game.

For every Wick Lamp that you light, you will collect one Wick, but you can only collect that if the Wick Lamps remain lit after you have solved a puzzle to lower the overall water level. The order in which you light up lamps will be key, so be sure to pay attention to each area and use some good old-fashioned trial and error to see what can work for each scenario. There are 49 Wick Lamps to light up in the game. Another thing to keep an eye out for are the mailboxes you will find here and there since they will provide you with some extra messages that will help you understand what is going on as they also give some insight into the overall story and your role in all of it. There are 17 messages in total, so you’ll definitely get your money’s worth if you try to 100% the game.

 

After you complete each section, the game will grade you based on your performance. Said grade will be affected by the number of Wicks you have collected, the number of robots you have helped, and the number of steps you have taken to solve each of the puzzles in that section. You can review the total Wicks and Robots for the section, as well as the milestone for steps that you should aim for, by pressing the + button to pause the game. If you want to get the best grade possible you will need to make good use of the Restart function so that you can go back to the last checkpoint you activated so that you can find the perfect solution for each puzzle, so be ready!

As for the extras for this one, the game does include a Gallery for Flood of Light. But to see it, you will first need to complete a specific percentage of the game to reach certain milestones at 25%, 50%, and 75%, as well as a final one for completing the game. You can review your percentage at a display in the initial area of the game, next to the elevator you use to reach each of the general sections for this release. For reference, the 25% milestone will be reached when you complete the third section in the game, since completing two sections will only put you at a little over 20%.

Flood of Light is a charming and very relaxing puzzle experience that will keep you engaged for a handful of hours as you try to lower the water level of a city abandoned by its people. Sure, it has a minimal story that is told by the robots you meet and the letters you collect from the mailboxes you search, but the solid difficulty curve for puzzles and its simple gameplay mechanics will keep you coming back for more.

Disclaimer
This Flood of Light review is based on a Nintendo Switch copy provided by Indienova.