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Comment by ido | Hacker News Reader

It’s not a puzzle in one critical sense: there is no single set solution to each level. I would say it’s an abstract, discrete (both turn- and grid-based) strategy game.

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I think it's described as a tactics game, to emphasize decisions at the micro level, as opposed to a strategy game which usually is larger in scope and encompasses things like base building and resource gathering.

Yeah that's fair enough! The strategy-part is pretty minimal (stuff like choosing/upgrading your pilots and mechs).

It's a tactics game with perfect information and deterministic actions, which transforms it into a puzzle game if you are inclined to treat it as one. The fact that some puzzles may be unsolvable is incidental (and usually avoidable, if you solve previous puzzles well).

For some people, the puzzle aspect is where the fun is. For others, it's a recipe for frustration.

You can say that because we don’t have an agreed definition of a puzzle game. For me it’s as much a puzzle as chess or go, which is to say it isn’t. For my definition having only 1 intended solution is what separates abstract strategy games from puzzles.

At least to me it feels a lot closer to Sedoku than Civilization.

Sure, it also feels closer to Sudoku than to Tennis. But I think it's closer to a "traditional roguelike" (like Jupiter Hell: https://store.steampowered.com/app/811320/Jupiter_Hell/ or Brogue: https://github.com/tmewett/BrogueCE) than to either.

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