"Films have trailers and games have demos, because you need to play a bit of the game to get a sense of what it's about!" -- Yahtzee

If that quote is true, this is a bad demo.

Zachtronics games have needed to get better at easing players in for years, and that's what this demo does. The mechanics are simple to read at a glance and appropriately tutorialized. However, teaching players how to play your game shouldn't be the primary focus of your demo; it should be about showing us why your game is fun by giving players a taste of the full experience. What makes these games so fun--and addictive--is its unique blend of creative problem-solving and optimization. This demo has neither. If wasn't familiar with Zachtronics games, I'd be completely confused as to why the histograms were a part of this game, because player solutions are going to look more or less identical,

The demo consists entirely of a couple basic tutorials, which made it an almost completely thoughtless experience from beginning to end. I sympathize, because it's perfectly reasonable for the first chapter of a game to be light on mechanics and heavy on story, and I'm sure that the team would rather focus on creating the finished game than creating a separate demo. But in this case, it would have been better to let players get their hands on multiple chapters.

The trailer gave me a better look at what the game was going to play like than the demo, and that isn't a good thing.

"Films have trailers and games have demos, because you need to play a bit of the game to get a sense of what it's about!" -- Yahtzee If that quote is true, this is a bad demo. Zachtronics games have needed to get better at easing players in for years, and that's what this demo does. The mechanics are simple to read at a glance and appropriately tutorialized. However, teaching players how to play your game shouldn't be the primary focus of your demo; it should be about showing us why your game is fun by giving players a taste of the full experience. What makes these games so fun--and addictive--is its unique blend of creative problem-solving and optimization. This demo has neither. If wasn't familiar with Zachtronics games, I'd be completely confused as to why the histograms were a part of this game, because player solutions are going to look more or less identical, The demo consists entirely of a couple basic tutorials, which made it an almost completely thoughtless experience from beginning to end. I sympathize, because it's perfectly reasonable for the first chapter of a game to be light on mechanics and heavy on story, and I'm sure that the team would rather focus on creating the finished game than creating a separate demo. But in this case, it would have been better to let players get their hands on multiple chapters. The trailer gave me a better look at what the game was going to play like than the demo, and that isn't a good thing.