Hot Wax sets fire to the Tetris playbook with slow-burn puzzle mechanics

Over the past couple of weeks, I've been conscious of an eerie background humming and hissing. For a while I thought it was just tinnitus, brought on by one too many listens of Control's Ashtray Maze OST, but then I realised that it was actually RPS regular quasiotter whispering in my ear about Hot Wax, which launches on Steam this week after a spell of Itch.io exclusivity.

It's the new arcade puzzler from PUNKCAKE Délicieux, otherwise known for inflicting shotguns on chess and forcing the alphabet to wear trousers in the name of archaeology, somehow. Hot Wax is actually quite straightforward by PUNKCAKE standards. It's Tetris, but all the blocks are candles, and rather than filling a line on the grid to clear blocks, you have to plant unpredictably dropped flames on wicks to slowly sizzle the mass away. Relatively straightforward, yes, but fiddly in practice. Did I mention that you're doing all this in a temple, under the eye of a "not unfriendly" eldritch god?