Image: Miguel Dorta & Spectral Orbit

Many of the best puzzle games are pure exercises in intuition. Some basic UI tutorial prompts aside, telling you how to move and zoom your camera, Satelital is a game that tells you nothing. There are goals here, there are rules to be discovered, and all you need to do is follow your gut as you wander around a solar system full of bite-sized puzzles, slowly making your way towards the center of it all, all accompanied by a soothing ambient soundtrack and art with few sharp edges.

On your first planet, you've got to turn all of the gems in each box from black to white. The symbols on the pieces you can place have something to do with which adjacent gems they'll toggle. On another world, you must fill each box with all available pieces; the symbols seem related to the shapes you must draw with them within that space. Some puzzles can be solved in ten seconds or less; others are brainteasers that'll leave you sitting for ages until you have that eureka moment. But none of them are especially big.

But what makes it really interesting is the ever-shifting rules. Each zone has an entirely different set of mechanics for you to poke and prod at until you understand what it is you're doing, hinted smartly by things lighting up when correct or being dimmed when out of place. It doesn't take long or much trial and error to intuit the basic rhythms and logic of each area. The tricky part comes in internalizing and applying it all.

There have been some exhaustingly massive puzzle games recently, but developer Miguel Dorta reckons that this one is one that you'll play through in an evening. 120 puzzles, an estimated 2-4 hours to get through them all. Knowing how bad I am at puzzles, I'd probably stretch that to at least five, but this one feels like you can fit it into most busy schedules. Given that I've already got 15+ hours of gaming on my docket for the weekend alone, something small and chill seems what the doctor ordered.

Satelital is out now for £17/$20, with a 15% launch discount. More to save, if you own other excellent word-free, rule-hunting puzzlers: Öoo (another short-and-sweet one) and Taiji (significantly lengthier). All good picks for the brainiac brigade.