I’m a huge fan of the British comedy game show . Each season, five comedians compete against each other to complete ridiculous goals. Competitors are often rewarded for lateral thinking as long as they follow the rules of each task.
I watch one player at a time , I often think “well, I could do better than that”. But sit in front of me It requires skillful use of logic or pushes me to think outside the box, and I often get frustrated and give up quickly (unless I find a decent guide to help me). It’s pretty annoying, especially since we’re in the golden age of puzzle games.
After a stressful day at work, I’m more inclined to play something relatively mindless Overwatch 2 or Fortnite. I gravitate towards anything that slows me down, like turn-based games. But the more I stick with puzzle games, the more I appreciate them. There are three new options I’ve recently gotten into Animal Well and Paper trail.
I had high expectations for it Lorelei. Latest offer from Developer Simogo, easily in my top three games of all time. Lorelei it’s completely different and unlike anything I’ve experienced before.
It opens with a woman named Lorelei standing by his car. The car won’t start, but luckily there is a hotel nearby. Apparently, Lorelei was supposed to be here to help the artist complete his masterpiece. This is a place where time is hazy. It’s 1963, but there are computers where you save your progress and a Game Boy-style system to use. The hotel is the only real permanent, and even that is built out of puzzles.
The visuals are amazing even on Nintendo Switch. Giallo-esque jolts of reds and pinks run through the often monochromatic environments. The design language is quirky, but carefully crafted to guide you from one puzzle to the next until Lorelei’s photo memory is full of puzzles to conquer.
There are all sorts of puzzles to solve here, and they’re all intertwined. First, you’ll have a few simple math problems to figure out. From there, you’ll tackle everything from mazes to pattern matching and spatial awareness puzzles. You need a decent understanding of Roman numerals and the ability to piece together disparate bits of information. Unfortunately for my disorganized self, a lot of logical thinking is required.
I’m not close to finishing Lorelei. However, I already appreciate the way Simogo puts together complex layered puzzles. My only quibble at first is the over-reliance on padlocks and three-digit codes protecting the document tubes.
My brain isn’t wired well for logic-heavy puzzles, so I have to be in the right frame of mind before sitting down. Lorelei a couple of hours. I want to savor this at my own pace over the coming weeks and months. I will forgo the guides and try to make sense of another of Simogo’s strange, intoxicating worlds on my own.
while Lorelei provides in-game instructions to the player in the opening moments, it offers almost no guidance. You (like an irritated little meatball) emerge from the flower into a cave with a large ghostly squirrel on one side. It’s not clear what direction you’re going to take, what your goal is, what your character is, or why you’re there. All you can do is explore and try to figure things out.
It’s described as a Metroidvania format that sees players backtrack to unlock a new area after gaining or upgrading a certain skill. It takes most people four to six hours to finish the main game. But Animal Well it’s really more of a puzzle platformer. It can be done if you know what to do and how to do it .
That’s part of it Animal Wellcharm and beauty. Solo developer Billy Basso has woven an intricate web of secrets, many of which lurk in the shadows of his gorgeous pixel art (game). feels It’s also great thanks to the clever use of haptic feedback in the PS5’s DualSense controller). Without spoiling anything, I appreciate that the puzzles, many of which are switch-based, are often open-ended. Even if you don’t use the intended item or route, there are ways to progress.
I don’t find the puzzles here nearly as taxing as here Lorelei. The answers are all there, you just have to poke around and try things to see what happens.
the same can be said for Paper trail From Newfangled Games. The artwork style caught my attention a few years ago when it started showing up at game shows. The core mechanic is also impressive.
The goal is to guide the main character, Paige, through confusing environments towards her goal of going to school and becoming an astrophysicist. But there are many obstacles in his way. Fortunately, Paige (and the player) can bend reality. It means folding the edges of the world, which is two plains like a piece of paper, to open new paths.
Newfangled finds clever ways to build on the central idea, and the difficulty curve is fair but challenging. Paper trail it has a nice hint system that shows you which twists to make, but it doesn’t show you how to move Paige or any objects around.
While the controls are clunky, even when playing it on mobile (available to Netflix subscribers), this is perhaps the easiest puzzle game I’ve found to engage in recently. I enjoy twisting the world around Paige and setting up some patterns to pave the way. It’s the kind of game that makes me feel clever and satisfied every time I find a solution.
I bet the more I play these games and others like them, the better I get. We’ve had a few distinctly puzzle-centric titles in the past few years. , and immediately comes to mind. As well as and his wildly entertaining destructive heists. Planet of Lana, Venba, Visor, and all were among my favorite 2023 games.
I wish I could enter The Case of the Golden Idol, but at least I appreciate what it’s going for. I might as well finally get around to checking Sennaar songs it’s now on Game Pass.
The so-called Zelda-style adventure puzzle games keep coming it just popped up and caught my attention. And then there is Indikaboth sound deeply weird and remarkably mature.
However, as with all great puzzle games, there is a bigger picture. All this is just an experience for the final test, because the VR version in June. I will soon realize that I am better at lateral thinking than comedians.
