Puzzle platformers are a bit of a staple of independent games. Since Braid saw critical and commercial success in 2008, the genre has almost become saturated, and while each game may explore its own new ideas in various ways, it has become increasingly difficult to care about them on the level they deserve.

Vessel focuses on fluid dynamics as its central idea. Like any good puzzle platformer should, it constantly does something new with that idea, making for a densely packed game with little filler content. As a physics-based puzzle game, it suffers from a few pitfalls that keep it from being truly great, but Vessel is still a very good game and certainly worth the time and money spent on it.