It’s not all blood, gore, rats and farming equipment at Reticule Towers. Sometimes it is pleasant to pick a game with a slower pace, gentle music and some pretty pictures and Jason Roberts’ Gorogoa – winner of this year’s IndieCade Visual Design Award – fits that description to a tee.

The mechanics of Gorogoa are exceedingly simple: click upon picture tiles or drag them besides or on top of others to solve visual puzzles. Clicking may cause the image to zoom towards an object or scene and, by changing its scale, it may then be combined with other images to perform new actions. Dragging a doorway onto a blank wall, for example, allows the boy-character to reach a new location by passing through that door. For such simple mechanics there are a wide range of solutions (though only one for each puzzles) and a  pleasing, dream-like quality to the experience which encourages experimentation.

Every tile is drawn and coloured in a soft yet detailed style that I feel sure is reminiscent of classic European cartoons and graphic novels, if only I knew more of the subject, and every scene is backed with a naturally flowing soundtrack of thoughtful synthesiser music and soundscapes.

A tentative release date is set for ‘late 2013’ but a short demo is now available for PC and Mac.