One of my favorite arcade games from back in the 80’s was Marble Madness, and I’ve always enjoyed trying out various marble rolling games since then.  Whether it be Super Monkey Ball, Marble Blast Ultra, Koronipa, or what have you.  So I was pleasantly surprised to find out that Glyph is the same kind of game!  In Glyph you control a mechanical scarab beetle as you try to uncover ancient desert ruins.  Your beetle mostly rolls up into a ball to move around.  Kind of reminds me of those Bakugan toys.  But you can do other things, too, like jump.  Roll around buried desert ruins and try to avoid touching the sands as you collect coins and gems while reaching the end of each obstacle filled maze.  It’s available on Switch and PC, but reviewed on Switch here.

In each level you’ll mostly use the L stick to roll around.  To reach the end of a level, you must collect a key (or maybe more) that opens a portal.  Reach the portal to finish the level.  In each stage are coins to collect and sometimes even hidden gems.  You’ll use coins in the hub world to open new levels, and gems will open new paths for more levels.  So it’s a bit of a collect-a-thon.  You can also unlock new skins and trails for your beetle, but I don’t know how to do that.

As you play, you’ll learn new skills.  These include jumping and even double jumping.  The neat thing is that your beetle ball will glow certain colors to let you know when you can jump and double jump.  When the symbols on your beetle glow yellow, you can jump.  But if you touch certain square that charge up your beetle, you’ll glow white and can double jump.  You can even jump up walls, which is pretty cool.  Another main skill you’ll learn is to glide.  You can make your beetle unfold from its ball from and fly for a short while, great for reaching long distances.  And you can even slam into the ground to flip switches.  You’ll use all these skills in creative ways to reach the end of each level.

Unfortunately, Glyph does have a few problems.  Play control felt a little loosey goosey, and I could never seem to stop rolling.  Luckily you can control yourself in the air, too.  I also wish there were checkpoints because if you touch the sand you must start over from the beginning of the level, which can be pretty frustrating.  Luckily any coins you already collected will still be with you, but you will have to gather the keys again.  People who don’t like collect-a-thon style games may not like this one, and it does get rather hard pretty quickly.  Also wish there was more variety in settings other than desert.  But otherwise this is still a pretty decent little marble roller.

Kid Factor:

Glyph is rated E-10 with an ESRB descriptor of Fantasy Violence.  If your robot beetle touches sand, it explodes and warps back to the beginning, but that’s about as violent as it gets.  Reading skill is helpful for the text, and younger gamers may find it too difficult.

Tags: Game Reviews