RPS Feature Mind Bending
The world’s most accurate ranking of the 25 best puzzle games ever to reach a computer. Plucking the peak of PC puzzling, we break down what makes them so special, and put them in the correct order. Read on for more time travel, rearranged tiles, hidden objects and hexed cells than you could ever want.
Have You Played? is an endless stream of game recommendations. One a day, every day of the year, perhaps for all time.
Here’s a lovely game about building molecules correctly.
Sokobond is by Alan Hazelden (A Good Snowman Is Hard To Build) and Harry Lee (Stickets) and it is very much My Kind Of Thing.
RPS Feature The aesthetics of puzzle game design
I love puzzle games. But it’s not beating them that’s the exciting part: it’s understanding them.
Whether mulling over a cryptic crossword or somersaulting through Portal’s portals, there’s a moment of epiphany which, for me, pretty much transcends all other moments in gaming. But how do you design a puzzle to best provoke that eureka moment? What gives a puzzle its aesthetic, its pace and texture? Why does one puzzle feel thrilling while another feels like a flat mental grind?
I’ve asked three of my favourite puzzle game designers to demystify their dark magicks: Jonathan Blow, best known for the puzzle-platformer Braid and currently hard at work on firstperson perplexathon, The Witness; Alan “Draknek” Hazelden, creator of Sokoban-inspired sequential-logic games, including Sokobond, Mirror Isles and the forthcoming A Good Snowman Is Hard To Build; and Jonathan Whiting, a programmer on Sportsfriends and collaborator with Hazelden on Traal, whose own games are a regular Ludum Dare highlight.
Now, let’s be clear. When I say “Hey, Sokobond has been out since September but now it’s on Steam,” I don’t mean to imply that you should refuse to buy games not on Steam, and I don’t want to encourage people who do. But a game being on Steam always draws more attention, and launching on Steam can reintroduce it to a larger audience. A Sokoban-y puzzler shifting and bonding atoms to form chemical compounds is a quiet and unassuming sort of game, after all. But a good one.
Hey, Sokobond has been out since September but now it’s on Steam.
RPS Feature It's True, Though
Being from Texas, I can count the number of snowmen I’ve built on one hand. Being from Texas, they were also about the size of said one hand. I did get the chance to slap together a bulbous yeti of truly epic proportions in college, though. I took so much pride in that dumb thing that I nearly tried to put a hit out on whomever kicked it down during that coldest of winter nights. I can identify with A Good Snowman Is Hard To Build‘s title, is what I’m saying. The game itself, however, is probably not what you’re expecting – a thing of snow-white relaxation and contemplation, not astute snowperson defense. It’s a simple yet wickedly challenging puzzler from Sokobond designer Alan Hazelden, with lovably, huggably soft personality to match.
Each snowperson has a name. A name! Awwwwwwwww.
Maybe Valve should put a yellow light in front of Steam Greenlight, because it needs to slooooooooow down – for just a second or two, anyway. I mean, don’t get me wrong: I’m all for tons of games getting the go-ahead to drown in sweet, sweet Greenlight green, but this week’s batch included – among a few other questionable/forgettable picks – Neal Stephenson’s CLANG. You know, the one whose development has been mostly halted and may not ever reach completion? Admittedly, Stephenson claims it’ll get finished no matter what… somehow, but maybe Valve should’ve held off until it was in a less questionable position? Or given the slot to a more deserving game? With improvements come new complications. Guess it’s true what they say: it’s not easy bein’ green(light).
Chemistry is basically a puzzle game, right? A puzzle game I was so utterly terrible at that I got an N for my A Level in the dastardly subject. Fortunately, Alan Hazelden and Harry Lee’s forthcoming Sokobond is a chemistry puzzle that I can at least start playing without hideous memories sending me trembling into a corner.
