Despite being a light, choice-based game, “Chuk and the Arena” is a complex game with intricate, well-designed puzzles.

Gameplay: The main character is an alien who enters a gladiatorial tournament in order to recover a moon stolen from his home planet. Defeating his opponents involves figuring out their weaknesses and solving puzzles around the alien ship to exploit them. It’s a lightly comedic science-fiction game, but the characters are solid, and the puzzles are complicated and satisfying to solve. 9/10.

Mechanics: The game is strongly puzzle-based, and the puzzles are reasonable and clever. They all have multiple moving parts, and solving them is a more involved process than just collecting inventory items and using them at the appropriate place. Even though the game is choice-based, it has an efficient inventory management system that allows items to be used in conjunction with other objects, characters, or setting details. 9/10.

Presentation: The text establishes a light, comedic tone that compliments its involved puzzles. The comedic scenes are well-written, and the characters have clear, distinct personalities. Those personalities are often rather two-dimensional and directly related to certain puzzles, but that’s fine for a game in this genre. 8/10.

You might be interested in this game if: You like choice-based puzzle games.

Score: 9