Boxville is a point-and-click puzzle game about sentient cans inhabiting a cardboard city.  No one speaks, but rather, communicates completely through drawings.  I’ve played plenty of games like this, whether it be When the Past Was Around or The Almost Gone, where you wander around, gather items to use in other locations, and solve puzzles.  And yet, for whatever reason, I really struggled with this demo.  Part of the issue arose from my confusion over where the inventory was (you need to hover over the top left corner of the screen), though I guess the game does show you this the first time you obtain an item.  I must have just missed it.

The demo had the usual puzzles one would expect from these sorts of games.  Find items and figure out where to use them, figure out the code to a padlock, and arrange some pipes to bridge the gap.  There’s really nothing wrong with this demo, but I wasn’t exactly a fan.  Again, I’m pretty decent at these sorts of games, so I’m unsure if my struggles stemmed from the game actually being confusing or me just being sleepy that day.  Though I do recall one time the controls really seemed clunky.  When you need to distract the gardener, my character kept refusing to do what I needed, and I ran out of time and had to try again.  I think the correct solution was selecting part of the scenery with the right item immediately, as walking over first, then choosing the item, doesn’t work.

With that said, the game was charming, with some perfectly good puzzles, and the characters were kind of cute despite the fact that they are, you know, sentient garbage. The demo lasts about 15 minutes if you know what you’re doing (longer if, like me, you’re a dingus) and seems to be available on pretty much any platform for $6.99.  Though keep in mind this game is short and should only take you about an hour to complete.  A lot of people seem to like this game, so it may not be a bad choice if you’re looking for a short puzzle game.