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Ciaphas posted:I'm loving Slipways a lot, but I'm not very good at picking out when and where to lab up yet. I probably scout too much too, especially in the beginning, but ending up with an unsatisfied planet at the turn of the year Feels Bad, Man I picked up Slipways yesterday and see a ton of potential, but jeeze am I bad at it. The lab/tech element is kind of confusing, so I just sort of aimlessly plop down labs when I have some extra resources of the same type in an area, and research whatever might be useful (it usually isn't). I know the game is new, so I'm hoping to see some write-ups on how to not be terrible.
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Jun 7, 2021 17:35
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skeleton warrior posted:If you like Slipways, another good recommendation is Dorfromantik. Oh yeah, this is the other game I was thinking about that Slipways reminded me of, thanks for that Something about the entire structure of both games really appeals to me. Maybe the "puzzle-of-your-own-Machiavellian-design" gameplay, or specifically the logistics/pathing aspects
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Jun 7, 2021 17:48
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WhiteHowler posted:I picked up Slipways yesterday and see a ton of potential, but jeeze am I bad at it. I feel like you want to get one lab down as early as you can, but beyond that I've only ever put them down when I can get 2 or more imports of a resource (so at least 3 science/year). Usually I've been able to get more, up to 9 by the end of one game. That said I still don't have a 4* score to my name so maybe I shouldn't be giving advice 
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Jun 7, 2021 17:50
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Two Owls posted:Trying to think of retro puzzlers ones I played in anger back when As a kid, both Sokoban (Boxxle) and Hyper Lode Runner for the Game Boy fascinated me for a few levels, then absolutely infuriated me because I got stuck on them and couldn't progress. Same with Solomon's Club (aka Solomon's Key), but at least it had a pretty catchy tune. Never got to play Nail n' Scale, but it looked fun, and you could shoot nails, and back then, you usually could not directly shoot enemies in puzzle games. I'm not a good puzzle game player, because I like it when I can solve them, but I really hate it when I can't. I played/borrowed/had the above in the pre-internet days, when if the solutions were not in a magazine you could get your hands on, you were stuck forever.
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Jun 7, 2021 17:51
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WhiteHowler posted:I picked up Slipways yesterday and see a ton of potential, but jeeze am I bad at it. The thing about labs is that the earlier you get tech going, the better. Labs also do a good job of providing for exports to get those wonderful prosperous planets, but that's more of a later function. Since you get your income by the year, labs are powerful early on. There are other ways to get tech though, and they should definitely be considered.
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Jun 7, 2021 17:52
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wait do exports to labs generate income?
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Jun 7, 2021 17:56
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Couldn't resist picking up Dorfromantik. It and Slipways are going to occupy a whole lot of my time this week.
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Jun 7, 2021 17:57
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Ciaphas posted:wait do exports to labs generate income? I haven't checked(though i usually don't have money problems after the first few years), but they do count as exports for the purpose of making a planet prosperous
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Jun 7, 2021 18:43
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That cosmos something game where you put down train tracks to pick up and drop off aliens is really good actually
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Jun 7, 2021 18:52
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ALRIGHT. Here's the thread for me. I have been playing a TON of puzzle games and I love 'em and love to talk about them. Here are some of my comments and recommendations: Quern: Undying Thoughts is probably the most "modern" Myst-like. It feels like a Myst game but with an inventory and a lot of the design considerations of more friendly modern game design. It's mostly linear, where the puzzles all typically give you a good idea of one or two places to look into next, but it's not entirely hand holdy. I generally I had a LOT of fun following its path and figuring out how the world works. As a small warning, there are a LOT of puzzles in the game. This means that a few of them are mildly derivative of other puzzle types you've seen before... but almost all of the puzzles in the game offer some kind of small twist on their formula. I honestly think this is one of the better puzzle games I've played in the last few years and it's a shame that I don't see it mentioned often outside of people looking at Myst games. I posted about Sensorium in the discovery thread and someone has already mentioned it in this thread. I think it deserves to be added to the OP here. It's kind a of a short puzzle homage to other popular games like Fez, The Witness, Braid, Antichamber, etc. It was made by one guy and heavily influenced by the other modern puzzle games he has played, but with the aforementioned twist about being "sense" based. I won't say it's groundbreaking, but rather really nice twists on things you've seen before and there are a few really cool puzzles that use its internal mechanics in ways I didn't expect but thought "that's really neat". It's very solid, has a bunch of interesting little ideas, and I really had a good time putting the pieces together. Like with a lot of these kinds of games, there is an "end game" with some meta-puzzles that are pretty tough and involve more abstract thinking. If you like sliding block puzzles, Huebots is 100 percent free on Steam. I don't know how many of you have heard of the board game "Ricochet Robot", but it's very similar to that (or the ice cave puzzles from Pokemon). This game is essentially abandonware, it used to have a level editor and a way to upload and download community levels but the developers (one of which later went on to make Sensorium) told me that it was their first project and the server where they stored their stuff shut down and it was not worth reconnecting to a new place so they just essentially unlocked all of the achievements related to online and released the game for free. It's a sliding block puzzle game, but I really think some of the level design is quite good. As for some upcoming puzzle games I'm excited about, Moncage is a game I played a demo for a while back but the demo was removed from Steam . If you liked Gorogoa it's very similar in terms of ideas, but with little 3d scenes in a cube instead of 2d images. Also, The Way of Rhea is a nice little puzzle game that I also played a demo for with simple mechanics where you have to change your color and the colors of other things in the right order to get through doors and open switches. The closest comparison is probably The Turing Test or Talos Principal in the sense that most of the puzzles involve finding ways to open paths to the end of the puzzle (in the right order to let you through) by manipulating the elements within a self contained chamber (as opposed to Portal where you use the elements to move yourself to the end) Superrodan fucked around with this message at 19:17 on Jun 7, 2021 |
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Jun 7, 2021 19:03
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Superrodan posted:ALRIGHT. Here's the thread for me. I have been playing a TON of puzzle games and I love 'em and love to talk about them. Sensorium has some great buzz both here and elsewhere, so I'll add it to the OP. I think generally if a game gets two or three good endorsements here, I'll throw it in the OP, as long as people don't start trying to "game" the process. Eventually I'll probably swap some of the less-loved games out to keep it readable.
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Jun 7, 2021 22:11
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For some reason I really can't stand 3d, first-person puzzle games like The Talos Principle, Portal, etc. I don't know what it is but they just aren't fun for me, maybe I tend to get a bit lost more easily whereas with a standard perspective you can see everything at once. I'm trying to remember some from memory but it's kind of tough. Creaks was really good, a puzzler with some light platforming. Sunblaze is a new game that kind of straddles the line between puzzle game and platformer. Each room is a puzzle that you need to figure out before you can beat it. But then you need to execute your plan which is drat hard in the brutal platformer nature. I also have a tile-based puzzle game on android that has you moving various bugs around a tiled field (every field is different and every bud moves differently) to get them all to one of the final tiles. Much harder than it sounds.
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Jun 7, 2021 22:39
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Two Owls posted:Turns out Pushover got a Steam re-release. The... the DOS version's music didn't sound like that originally, right?
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Jun 7, 2021 22:46
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In the vein of The Talos Principle, I've been having a fair amount of fun with Relicta, which seems to have flown under the radar when it was released last August. Similar to Talos, it's a narrative first-person puzzler in some very pretty environments, where the main gimmick involves manipulating boxes by magnetizing them and turning their gravity on/off individually. I'm still working my way through it, and there are definitely some rough edges, especially in the narrative (the game is set in a huge moon base with a bunch of people working in it which you conveniently somehow manage to never see in person, lol). But the puzzles are pretty good and it has a decently long demo that sold me on it. As a bonus the main voice-acted characters are all South Asian women which is some cool representation. I'd recommend trying the demo based on what I've played so far.
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Jun 7, 2021 23:00
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Every year my parents and I have a tradition to take some time to play through some puzzle games when I'm visiting. This year we're going to tackle Manifold Garden, Portal Reloaded (A mod where they add a green portal that takes you through time), and Maquette. I might make recommendations in this thread after giving them a shot. Plus, I have vowed to show them Outer Wilds. It's not their style of game (they like a lot of levels and structure) but I want to show them why I love it so much. I'm kind of surprised it's not in the OP now that I look again, actually, considering how popular it seems to be. Maybe it's more of a mystery than a puzzle? I forgot to ask this in my other post, but has anyone played Call of the Sea? I am curious if it's more story/exploration with a few simple puzzles, or if you would consider it more of a puzzle game with a story? I don't want to look up reviews that spoil anything but I'm wondering if anyone has a high level description of how they feel it hit the balance of puzzles and story and what kinds of puzzles there are? Superrodan fucked around with this message at 23:22 on Jun 7, 2021 |
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Jun 7, 2021 23:01
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Superrodan posted:This year we're going to tackle Manifold Garden
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Jun 7, 2021 23:14
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Would Return of the Obra Dinn be considered a puzzle game? I suppose in a way it's like a version of those logic puzzles where Rebecca has a blue house but her neighbour only wears red t-shirts.
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Jun 7, 2021 23:20
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Mad props to those recommending Dorfromantik. I always liked Carcassonne and this iterates on that idea in a great way. Already lost like 4 hours to it.
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Jun 7, 2021 23:50
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HopperUK posted:Would Return of the Obra Dinn be considered a puzzle game? I suppose in a way it's like a version of those logic puzzles where Rebecca has a blue house but her neighbour only wears red t-shirts. Absolutely. The core gameplay is a giant puzzle based on direct observation, and inductive and deductive reasoning, with one correct solution. Anyone who enjoys logic puzzles will probably enjoy Obra Dinn. It's one of my favorite games in recent memory.
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Jun 8, 2021 00:05
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Superrodan posted:Every year my parents and I have a tradition to take some time to play through some puzzle games when I'm visiting. This year we're going to tackle Manifold Garden, Portal Reloaded (A mod where they add a green portal that takes you through time), and Maquette. I might make recommendations in this thread after giving them a shot. Outer Wilds is definitely borderline. The whole overarching plot is a grand puzzle, and there are some puzzle-type things in certain rooms, but it also has action and exploration and narrative. More so than Obra Dinn where there is explicitly one puzzle and you just walk around a bit solving it. Great game but I'd call it exploration/adventure before puzzle, probably. I mean, I suppose at some point you could just abstract anything into being a puzzle game. What is Dark Souls but a complex puzzle about how to use the available mechanics to defeat a particular boss or whatever? lol Call of the Sea was just crap for my money. It does have puzzles but I found it to be a poorly-designed slog and quit after like the third main room.
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Jun 8, 2021 00:23
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Puzzle games I have actually played this year, in no particular order: Everyday Genius: Squarelogic - Nuff said. Lightmatter - It wants to be Portal so painfully badly. It's alright? Recursed - A puzzle platformer about programming, but in no way a programming game. Pretty hard; I come back to it once a year or so and only get a little further each time. Dissembler - I fell asleep after 25 levels or so. Not bad per se, but the challenges never felt interesting to me. Campfire Cooking - Smart design, one of the gentler learning curves I've seen in puzzle games. Which might put some people off. Tametsi - A go-to deduction game if you're finding Hexcells too easy or too samey. Sensorium - A decent attempt at a Witness-like; somewhat short and slightly shallow, but there are interesting ideas in there and the game is fun throughout until you get to the post game. Memorrha - Clunky and dull first person puzzler, can't recommend. Upcoming puzzle games I'm looking forward to based on their demos: Jelly is Sticky Akurra Patrick's Parabox
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Jun 8, 2021 01:27
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NRVNQSR posted:Memorrha - Clunky and dull first person puzzler, can't recommend. more like diarrhea
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Jun 8, 2021 01:46
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Superrodan posted:I forgot to ask this in my other post, but has anyone played Call of the Sea? I am curious if it's more story/exploration with a few simple puzzles, or if you would consider it more of a puzzle game with a story? I don't want to look up reviews that spoil anything but I'm wondering if anyone has a high level description of how they feel it hit the balance of puzzles and story and what kinds of puzzles there are? Call of the Sea isn't bad. As a vague description, the game is divided into distinct levels, most of the time you can freely walk around a most or all of a given level which will have one or more mechanisms scattered about that you have interact with an a certain way. So the puzzles are figuring out what a given mechanism wants you to, how to do it. None of the puzzles are that hard, how much you enjoy the game is probably going to depend heavily on how much you dig the games atmosphere.
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Jun 8, 2021 03:47
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I did really like Euclidea - it's the puzzle game about doing geometric constructions you never asked for. I have no idea how to describe that in a way that sounds anything but hopelessly nerdy, but basically, you get very simple tools and use them to find construct something - a simple example is "given two points, find their midpoint". The game asks you to do these in as few moves as possible. It's mind-bendingly hard to get the top scores, requires real out-of-the-box thinking, and is just way more fun than a game about doing tenth grade geometry homework should be. You'll end up learning things about math but it's extremely gamified to the point that you could play it without any context and still have fun imo. It's on iOS/Android or the web at https://www.euclidea.xyz/. There's a free demo that, afaik, is the full game, it just forces you to get the top answer before proceeding, which is quite harsh.
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Jun 8, 2021 09:52
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Superrodan posted:Quern: Undying Thoughts is probably the most "modern" Myst-like. It feels like a Myst game but with an inventory and a lot of the design considerations of more friendly modern game design. It's mostly linear, where the puzzles all typically give you a good idea of one or two places to look into next, but it's not entirely hand holdy. I generally I had a LOT of fun following its path and figuring out how the world works. As a small warning, there are a LOT of puzzles in the game. This means that a few of them are mildly derivative of other puzzle types you've seen before... but almost all of the puzzles in the game offer some kind of small twist on their formula. I honestly think this is one of the better puzzle games I've played in the last few years and it's a shame that I don't see it mentioned often outside of people looking at Myst games. I liked Quern a lot, it copies the art style of Riven and does a really good job of balancing inventory management with some smart puzzle design. It is derivative in a sense, but it's still a great example of how to improve a formula. It's my favorite modern Myst-like.
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Jun 8, 2021 10:12
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Regarding Slipways: I find it quite interesting. What I'm wondering about is how much the perceived difficulty has to do with the map vs with your choices. Here is a map I found extremely easy: JDZ-HVRNWAMCD (on challenging, no quirks). I kept having the impression that everything worked out perfectly and got way more succesfull/prosperous planets than usual (27E, 17S, 7P). Looking back I'm sure I could have done way better than my 16k score. I wonder whether everybody would agree with me on this being an easy map? It seems perfectly possible to me that somebody else takes this map, makes a slightly different choice at the start, and because of this has a completely different experience. Or goes an entirely different route and does way better than me despite choosing different planets/options. Perk/council choices the geology perk and the establishment tech were essential. Walh Hara fucked around with this message at 11:33 on Jun 8, 2021 |
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Jun 8, 2021 11:29
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I have never played a Myst, but I recently finished Obduction, which as far as I could tell is the same genre? It rules. I loved how all of the puzzles made sense within the gameworld. I also really liked how it dropped all those red herrings and made fun of convoluted puzzle logic, but never actually asks you to do any stupid bullshit. Felt very big brained afterwards. Also the environments look pretty great.
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Jun 8, 2021 11:42
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The Slipways campaign is kinda interesting because the win condition has very little to do with what gives you a high score(though it does affect how many stars you get), it's kind of a challenge trying to hit things like the big planetary forge because not all the planets around it are going to be suited for getting maxed out unless you get some sick techs. That might be the way to go on that mission, though.
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Jun 8, 2021 11:43
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Jeffrey of YOSPOS posted:OCTOPTICOM is another good one under spatial manipulation. It involves manipulating beams of colored light to produce various output images. I think the steam preview image is pretty illustrative: If you like beam of light puzzles Archaica: The Path of Light is a gorgeous looking example of it and quite tricky Solas 128 is visually simpler but has an almost metroidvania concept because of how each puzzle links together to unlock new parts of the map Not beam-of-light but still puzzle: Memorrha has you finding and later making tiles with boolean logic to unlock new areas and again, looks very pretty
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Jun 8, 2021 11:55
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I absolutely love Islanders The game markets itself as a "minimalist city builder" but it's way more of a puzzle game than a building game, at least in the main game mode (a sandbox does exist for just making pretty things). You're given a bunch of pieces and have to use those pieces to score enough points, which unlocks more pieces. Eventually you gain enough points to migrate to a new, bigger island. In order to maximise your point gain, pieces gain bonuses (and penalties) for what they're near. For example, farm fields will want a mill nearby. Low quality housing won't mind living near a mine, but mansion owners will. You gain more points for 'correct' placement of buildings and a big part of the game is working out how to maximise this gain. There are several landscapes which cause you to have to use different pieces; for example, if you find yourself on a Snowy island, farms won't do any good so you won't get them. Sometimes, you'll end up on an archipelago and have to use Piers to form the foundation of your city. It's open ended in a sense - the goal is to gain as many points as you can. If you run out of pieces to build with, then it's game over. My favourite thing about Islanders though is how relaxing it is to play - it's a game I absolutely recommend and it's got such a low cost of entry (£4.79) for how wonderful it is, it's almost obscene.
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Jun 8, 2021 12:24
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I'm currently enjoying Grindstone on the switch as my brainless go to game, which I am enjoying a lot. Not sure what you'd call this genre, maybe Arcade Puzzle? I just find chaining monsters together really satisfying and the art reminds me of either Snood or Adventure Time depending on how you're feeling. With a toddler I don't feel like I have a ton of heavy brain time to invest into games that want to be more immersive or whatever. This thread is great, there's a ton of stuff I've never heard of. Thanks OP!
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Jun 8, 2021 12:24
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Ludoku is surprisingly good. Many short puzzles in the same theme. It's like a cross between the Sudoku/Picross genre and the Ricochet Robots/Chips Challenge Ice Sliding Puzzle genre. You're moving one thing, numbers at the sides or special squares influence what moves are available, you're supposed to find the shortest path that reaches the level goal. The difficulty progression is very nice, hard enough to be challenging and feel a sense of achievement on solving it, but not so hard that you get stuck forever.
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Jun 8, 2021 13:21
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I’ve seen a few mentions of Stephen’s Sausage Roll and I gotta vent. I was loving that game for the first few hours or so. Tricky but fair puzzles where I felt I was learning gradually. Then the game locks everything (as far as I know) behind The Great Tower, which has to be the absolute most vertical jump in difficulty I’ve ever seen in a game. I spent hours on it and never felt I was making any progress. Just way too many options and too many mechanics introduced all at once. It honestly made me feel like an idiot because I thought: no way they would put a level this intentionally difficult so early in the game, so I guess my brain is just broken. I didn’t even want to look up the solution and continue because I’m assuming I’ll run into something way harder later. Did any of y’all solve the great tower organically and just feel like it was a reasonable increase in difficulty?
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Jun 8, 2021 14:08
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giogadi posted:I’ve seen a few mentions of Stephen’s Sausage Roll and I gotta vent. I was loving that game for the first few hours or so. Tricky but fair puzzles where I felt I was learning gradually. Then the game locks everything (as far as I know) behind The Great Tower, which has to be the absolute most vertical jump in difficulty I’ve ever seen in a game. I spent hours on it and never felt I was making any progress. Just way too many options and too many mechanics introduced all at once. It honestly made me feel like an idiot because I thought: no way they would put a level this intentionally difficult so early in the game, so I guess my brain is just broken. I too crumbled before the Great Tower and haven't been back since. Great game until that point.
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Jun 8, 2021 14:24
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oh poo poo, I just realised that in Slipways asteroids do not give you passive income, you consume them for a one time payout 
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Jun 8, 2021 14:44
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StrixNebulosa posted:I too crumbled before the Great Tower and haven't been back since. Great game until that point.
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Jun 8, 2021 14:56
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grate deceiver posted:I have never played a Myst, but I recently finished Obduction, which as far as I could tell is the same genre? Obduction's by Cyan, the makers of Myst.
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Jun 8, 2021 15:21
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Riven is still one of my all time favorite games. Nearly 25 years ago it brilliantly demonstrated how puzzles could be used to tell a story, rather than them just being an obstacle for the player to overcome. Sadly the source code was lost so it’s unlikely to ever see an HD remaster unless somebody uses a deep learning AI to upres all 30,000 screens or however many there are.
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Jun 8, 2021 15:36
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grate deceiver posted:oh poo poo, I just realised that in Slipways asteroids do not give you passive income, you consume them for a one time payout I've played six games of Slipways now, and I have never, ever even come close to running out of money. Which means I'm almost certainly doing something wrong. I finished my third regular game with three stars, and beat the first Campaign scenario. Also, I noticed that completing the first tier of tasks for a council race rewards you with something like "X race items added to events". I have no idea what that means. What events?
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Jun 8, 2021 15:50
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WhiteHowler posted:I've played six games of Slipways now, and I have never, ever even come close to running out of money. Which means I'm almost certainly doing something wrong. I finished my third regular game with three stars, and beat the first Campaign scenario. If you hook up one of the artifacts to a planet with a free population, the race items represent randomly presented options. Some of them are really good. If you're hooking up population planets and making sure you keep enough of them steady you will not have money problems.
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Jun 8, 2021 15:52
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