Tag: Puzzle

Baba Is You And Baba Is Brilliant

I miss Games of the Month!!!! I’m gonna bring it back, kind of!!! Soon!

School is a lot as usual, but taking things slowly is the best I can do for now. I haven’t played as much as I would’ve liked, but we’ve still had some real killers in early 2019. First off? Baba Is Goooooooooooood.

I already called Baba is You “2017’s best puzzle game” when it was just a genius half-hour bit of puzzlecraft. Now that its ten-ish levels have grown to two-hundred-ish? Uh, you should probably toss your $15 at Arvi “Hempuli” Teikari” as soon as possible.

Part logic puzzle, part light programming, Baba Is You won’t fail to make you feel like a genius, then a complete moron, then the smartest human being who ever lived dozens of times over. You physically move the rules of the game around the screen with a Sokoban-style grid, and whatever you spell out becomes the law of the land. Push the word “Wall” away from “Wall Is Stop” and then enjoy your new ability to walk through walls. Tired of playing as Baba? Spell out “Rock Is You” instead, and live out your dreams as a rolling stone.

It’s an incredible mechanic that I’ve never seen anywhere else. It’s also a mechanic that makes so much sense as soon as you see it in motion it’s impossible not to want to try it yourself. Every person I’ve shown the game to has been able to dive right in an begin enjoying puzzles within a minute or two of figuring out what they’re looking at.

Every level in the game is either teaching you a new mechanic, or testing your knowledge of a previous one before building something brand new on top of it. If you decide the puzzles involving robots aren’t for you (I’m bad at them!), just skip onto one of the other dozen or so levels you have available at any one time. There’s a shocking amount of variety here that brings me back to my old Super Mario 3D World point: it’s never afraid to have a good idea and toss it away for another one. After several hours I’m still hitting breakthroughs with puzzles and stumbling into stunning realizations about the limits of the game. Baba Is You isn’t for everybody, but if you’re willing to really stretch your brain across some creative puzzle solving, you’ll find a lot to love.

If you want to feel like a super genius, check out Baba is You on the game’s site or on the Switch eShop.

April 6, 2019
JUMPGRID is a Punishing, Heart-Pounding Puzzler

JUMPGRID is a game of aggression. Right there in the all-caps title it lets you know that it means business. Death comes fast and often, and the electronic soundtrack never stomps thumping to mourn. Instead, a violently flashing screen and a screech greet you at every end. It’s reminiscent of Super Hexagon, in that you’re the only thing keeping the party’s pace down. You have to move, and you better move fast.

In JUMPGRID, you’re tasked with hopping between 9 dots on a grid. Like this:

You’re the glowy thing in the middle, and you can jump to any of the ones directly across from you, i.e., up, down, left, or right. Once you dodge whatever obstacles are flying through the grid and collect all nine green pieces, a warp hole to the next level opens up in the center and you hop along from there. Doesn’t sound too bad, huh?

Well… it gets rough. After a dozen or so screens, JUMPGRID feels like it’s just getting started. Very specific sequences of jumps have to be performed at exact times in order to collect all the shards and make the warp. Some are time limited, others have you follow a fast-moving maze and collect shards in order, and others just send way too much at your way to comprehend until you’re at least a handful of deaths in. You’ll respawn immediately though with every mistake, giving the game more than a passing resemblance to any number of precision platformers.

https://youtu.be/Ag-xI72ReUA

If you’re ready to make the jump, give JUMPGRID a shot on Ian Maclarty’s itch.io page.

March 6, 2018
Fidel Dungeon Rescue Trusts Your Instincts

Fidel Dungeon Rescue seems like a simple thing on the surface. Just from the few screenshots I saw of it last year, I had decided that it wasn’t something for me. I’m not typically into grid based strategy stuff that isn’t titled Mega Man Battle Network, and it just reminded me of a gussied up version of a bland Puzzlescript game.

Uhh… also I was wrong.

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January 8, 2018
Baba Is You Is 2017’s Best Puzzle Game

Remember that feeling we had when everybody played the first SUPERHOT demo? Baba Is You reminds me a lot of that.

It’s a simple idea that’s so creative I don’t know how we haven’t seen something like it before. You’re asked to move a small creature named Baba around a space, and spell out your own game rules and win conditions using words in the environment. You might see “Rock is Stop” and “Flag is Win” but the flag is blocked by a wall of rocks that ‘Stop’ you. How do you get around them? Push the word “Stop” away, and “Rock Is” will be left behind, not activating any game rules, and the rocks no longer block your way. I promise it sounds way more complicated than it is.

If you enjoy the feeling of solving a brilliant puzzle and feeling equally as brilliant as a result, Baba Is You will be right up your alley. Even solving the easiest puzzles in Baba gives an intense feeling of accomplishment simply because you’ve never, ever solved a puzzle quite like it before. About halfway through there’s an extremely satisfying moment where you realize the rules can be bent even more than you expected, and it’s one of my favorite things I’ve discovered in a puzzle game this year.

If you’re ready to bend your brain and make your own rules, give Baba Is You a shot on Hempuli’s itch.io page.

May 31, 2017
Comedy + Tension = Bomb Squad Academy

You have one minute to defuse this bomb. You’ve already cut a few wires that you know were correct, but the system still hasn’t shut down. There’s 10 seconds left and you notice a big red button in the corner that says “DISARM” and you push it. You nearly throw your laptop across the room because the explosion sound effect is so terrifying.

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December 14, 2016
The Witness – Drawing Conclusions

2016 has been rad so far, right? With Pony Island, Oxenfree, and now, serious Wow This Is Already Game of the Year Material, The Witness, we’ve been doing pretty well for ourselves.

I’ve had the game for less than a week, but I’m pretty comfortable in calling The Witness a puzzle classic along the lines of Braid, Fez, Antichamber, and Portal. It’s really that great, and I’ve barely seen a quarter of it. Though it feels similar to those games, The Witness never seems like it’s aping any one of them, and surprisingly feels like the Brand New Thing I always hoped it could be. The puzzles expand in ways that are at once brilliant and natural, and I kind of wish I was just playing more of it right now to see what they could possibly surprise me with next. (more…)

January 28, 2016