Perhaps this is why the game feels so elemental, if you'll forgive the pun. The circles represent atoms - the H circles are hydrogen, the O is oxygen, and when you've put them all together you've made water: H2O. I don't know much about chemistry, but I guess some of you will have immediately worked out what Sokobond is really about. A few moves later, you'll have manoeuvred each circle into a cluster and discovered that the object is to remove all the orbs, leaving you with a little structure.
Soon enough, you learn that if you move a circle next to another and they both have orbs, they'll bond together and an orb will disappear from each. One of the Hs bears a dotted rather than solid circle and you can move it around the board with the cursor keys. Two of them are red, each with an H displayed in its middle and with a single little orb orbiting it, and one is a blue O with two orbs. Three circles are sitting on a board of squares. It opens without explanation, just the opportunity to play and experiment. That's because you learn it without tortuous tutorials. Sokobond is one of these puzzle games - and fittingly, when you start playing it, it feels like a game you've discovered, too. In the world of puzzle games, developers like Drop7 co-creator Frank Lantz are scientists or explorers, unearthing perfect gems which shine with a complexity that unfurls from a set of simple rules which, once you've grasped them, feel like natural laws. Like they've always been there, waiting for someone to come along and uncover them. To me, the best puzzle games feel like they've been discovered, not designed.
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