Roses In Concrete

You start as a seedling deep underground with a set amount of resources, chasing freedom under the sunlight. Moving through the maze of obstacles depletes the resources that you have, making every path to the finish a potentially precarious one. However, every tile also replenishes some of those resources, making the journey to your end goal possible. The challenge, then, is to persevere and find that path to the finish and "making it."

Added on top of the metaphor explicit in the game mechanics is the narrative component that turns each level into a summary of the real life lived by a famous historical figure. Similar to the musician who penned the poem the game is based on, the people whose profiles are in the game faced harsh adversity in life, but they found their own path through the struggle. The game has thus become a compendium of sorts - a testament to human resilience and ingenuity in the face of challenges. The famous personalities whose profiles are in the game come from diverse fields such as the arts, entertainment, politics, philosophy, sports, and more. They were chosen from a dataset of the most visited Wikipedia pages.

There are three kinds of boards: small, medium, and large. The game has over 1750 levels. Every level has only one possible solution.

There is no optimal strategy to always make the correct decision at every point and finish the level in one try. There is always some luck involved. While it may be a turn-off for hardcore puzzle players, it works perfectly with the metaphor that the game intends, as you never have the same clarity or clairvoyance to know where your life will be in the future based on what you do today.