Game Review: Fault Line

Fault Line is probably the first game in a long time I'd played where I had become obsessed with trying to figure out how to reverse engineer its mechanics. It's an Action-Puzzle style flash game which leans more into hardcore play style (especially in later levels), but still has casual appeal.
As indicated in the credits, the art is by Stefan Åhlin, it's programmed by Chris Burt-Brown, with music by Dave Cowen, and is part of the Nitrome games network.

The game's goal is to bring its protagonist through dynamic environments akin to mazes via manipulation of space.

Summary of analysis
Minimal interactions/mechanics to teach the player, resulting in a quick and in the action tutorial, excellent mix of challenging puzzles and learning how to use the mechanics creatively but lacking replay value, well accomplished music and sound, and uncluttered/non-distracting interface with largely accommodating and simple controls.

Tutorial/New player experience
By the end of the first level, all the game's interactions have been shown to the player, the challenge from that point forward is learning how to use them to solve the various levels ahead.

Gameplay experience
With experimentation and creative logic, I'd have to say that the game is at just the right mix of challenge and learning that really makes a puzzle game shine. The game also forgoes narrating a story and lets the player's own imagination wander if they're so inclined to find a premise that ties together the events of the game.
Levels are timed and scored, but outside of playing the game with an attitude of testing the limits of the mechanics, there's fairly little motivation behind replaying them except to get a few more points.

Interface & Controls
A minimal interface lets the player focus better on the tasks at hand. The most notable part of the interface and controls is the mouse-driven detachable hands of the character, which pull together special node points in the environment, thereby bending the level's space in order to create pathways, avoid or destroy obstacles, navigate the maze, and even have a little fun distorting objects. Character movement consists of keyboard keys for moving left, right, and jumping (with some accommodation of multiple layouts).

Graphics
Sprite-art character and objects/environment with a futuristic style. No character death, relying on a rewinding time to most recent checkpoint mechanic when hazardous conditions are met (including bending the environment into a collapse on the character).

Music & Sound
Unlike a lot of futuristic-style games, the music was neither fast-paced, nor annoyingly repetitive (at least by my tastes and standards). The music and sound evoked a sense of mystery, possibly being meant to entice a player to keep pressing to finish every challenge.

Commentary
As stated earlier, this game has left my designer tendencies working overtime theorizing possible methods of implementing similar mechanics. From incredibly well-written object-draw programming tied together with an adaptive surfaces interpretation to interchangeable level maps to more complicated object-merging interactive systems, this game was engaging as a player and inspirational as a game designer. Also, Fault Line is a testament to breaking away from convention and trying to innovate by making the level itself the focus instead of the character or the character's movements.
Finally, it never hurts to take a mechanic and show how it can be iteratively used to exponential degrees.