Gleam is a tile swap puzzle game by Twix Master of BAG Games, released in August, 2026. The author describes it as an arcade roguelike puzzler where you slide crystals, defeat monsters and hopefully escape. The version played is 1.1.
Your goal is get all crystals into a one formation by swapping their tiles with the one you stand on while trying not to get too many hits from monster tiles. Potions, scattered around, help a bit, but you still have to be very careful.
![Gleam [Gameplay 1] /// Pico-8 Adventures](https://www.lastofavari.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/09/Pico-8-Gleam-1.jpg)
![Gleam [Gameplay 2] /// Pico-8 Adventures](https://www.lastofavari.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/09/Pico-8-Gleam-2.jpg)
![Gleam [Gameplay 3] /// Pico-8 Adventures](https://www.lastofavari.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/09/Pico-8-Gleam-3.jpg)
The idea behind this game is pretty simple, yet it results in a fun and addicting gameplay loop. Even though here we’ve got just 4 types of objects – it only takes a few rounds to draw you in and then you find yourself on level 30 when your glace passes to the bottom of the screen to see your score.
Giant sprites look good and they are nicely animated. There’s no music at the moment, but I like the sound effects. A little victory tune is very cute.
There’s a little lack of gameplay variety. The number of configurations is limited by 4 x 4 size of the level that stays the same as you progress through the game. Puzzle generation feels like it has a little too much RNG. Sometimes you get a few very easy levels where you only have to push one tile couple times in a row and sometimes you have to stop and think for a moment.
Implementing a more controlled procedural puzzle building algorithm would create a difficulty curve that would allow the player see their progress through the game.
Another aspect is a lack of an incentive to go for a more optimal solution. The only case when you get more than one point per stage is when you have only 1 HP and no potions left, which doubles your reward at the cost of questionably reasonable risk. One way to help with that would be to raise the base reward to 10 or even 20 points and then count remaining turns as bonus score.
I know it may feel like I’m not enjoying the game too much since 2/3 of the verdict are my suggestions on how to improve the game, but in reality it just makes you see that I care about it. It would be a great mobile title.
In my view, Gleam is a small indie game with a big potential, and that’s why it gets an Avarian Thumbs Up!
Play the game on Lexaloffle Pico-8 BBS.
Developer’s Pico-8 BBS profile | Itch.io page