In celebration of Way of Rhea releasing on Steam in 6 days, I'm making a post a day about a different aspect of the game. Let's look at the first area of the game: Shrew's Biome. Be warned--this blog series features mild spoilers! [img]https://clan.cloudflare.steamstatic.com/images//35599024/e495d52d374647119b540e925311a2f22164c88a.gif[/img] [i]Shrew is your excitable friend who's very invested in you solving the forest puzzles tonight for some reason.[/i] [h2]Color Changing[/h2] [img]https://clan.cloudflare.steamstatic.com/images//35599024/6ba9bfe1b06bf34b848cfc0a972fe1a0c992f6e9.gif[/img] [i]From left to right: gate, lamp, orb, & you.[/i] Way of Rhea's main mechanic is the ability to change colors. You can enter gates and elevators when you match their color, otherwise you cannot. To change color, you place a colored orb into a lamp. Upon doing this, you become the color of the orb and the orb is destroyed. [h2]Teleportation[/h2] [img]https://clan.cloudflare.steamstatic.com/images//35599024/cf42a3f5d0b11afe3eddf06934eff312826e547a.gif[/img] Teleportation in Way of Rhea requires two steps: [olist] [*] Set a teleporter as your destination by interacting with it [*] Interact with any other teleporter in the map to be sent back to this destination [/olist] As a result, you can only teleport to locations that you've already been. [h2]Undo/Redo[/h2] [img]https://clan.cloudflare.steamstatic.com/images//35599024/6448be2e35e3ddfdc9d22f9a6e593128e9bfa5db.gif[/img] This clip also shows off the undo/redo mechanic that is taught in this biome. As you progress through the game the puzzles become difficult to solve, but you're always free to explore different options without committing to them through use of undo/redo. [h2]Orb/Tele Fields[/h2] [img]https://clan.cloudflare.steamstatic.com/images//35599024/df17a72f9aa924f4b7b21246dd78cbb259ed1a92.gif[/img] As the puzzles increase in difficulty, orb and tele fields are introduced. Orb fields (right) prevent you from carrying orbs across them, whereas tele fields (left) disable the active teleport destination when they are crossed. [h2]Difficulty[/h2] [img]https://clan.cloudflare.steamstatic.com/images//35599024/6d749abcaa028d23f12b1ef033e7bfe88140f5ce.gif[/img] As you progress through the biome, the puzzles increase in difficulty as you're increasingly required to take advantage of edge cases of the mechanics to progress. That being said, this is still the intro area, and seasoned puzzle gamers likely won't have much trouble with it. I'll see you tomorrow in Snow Crabs's Biome... Cheers, Mason