Cadence Review
Logic meets rhythm in Cadence, a puzzle game where the reward is hearing your solution come together.
Cadence. Credit: Made with Monster Love
Cadence is a logic puzzle game with musical elements from developer Made with Monster Love (Peter Cardwell-Gardner), a passion project 13 years in the making. Its compelling puzzles, clean minimal 3D visuals, and musical hook make it easy to recommend. It turns logic puzzles into something you can hear, and that small twist makes it special.
Your goal is simple: complete a circuit to wake up Ren the cat. The circuit is built from tiles, and you create directional connections so an impulse can travel from start to end. It gets challenging fast as new blocks come in. Some need to be hit from two sides at once, others introduce delays, and some gate your signal until you’ve completed a set number of loops. You’ll think you’ve solved it, hit play, and watch it crash to a halt halfway through. Or even earlier, if you’re anything like me. It all comes down to deduction and troubleshooting as you tweak your circuit. You’re debugging your mistakes in real time.
Cadence. Credit: Made with Monster Love
The puzzles matter, but the sound is the game’s real charm. As the signal moves through your circuit, it creates music, and for me, hearing that final loop was the most satisfying part of solving each puzzle. Cadence also includes a sandbox mode where you can freely place tiles to build your own music. There aren’t many levels on the Steam Workshop yet, but some are already impressively complex in both design and sound. The App Store version currently doesn’t support sharing creations.
While the game plays in 2D, the art is polished 3D with an isometric perspective. Tiles sit in a clean white space with soft shadows, and as your solution runs, the circuit comes alive—balls bounce, switches animate, everything clicks into motion. Everything moves with purpose. It’s minimal, but not sterile. More importantly, the visual design makes puzzles readable at a glance. It’s intuitive.
Cadence is a cleverly designed puzzler. You can finish it in a few hours if the solutions click, but if you’re musically inclined, the sandbox can keep you busy forever. I want to see what people more talented than I am do with it.
Cadence
Cadence is a short, clever puzzler with satisfying trial-and-error design and a creative musical twist.
