Without spoiling too much. Tunic has three main puzzles: >figuring out what the manual is telling you to do >environmental puzzles >deciphering the manual
The first is needed to beat the game, the second is needed to 100% the game, and the third is for your own amusement, to solve some ARG, or if you're really so desperate and you absolutely can't figure out where to go (if you're really at this point, you probably shouldn't be playing the game). When people call it a Zelda clone, they mean it's Zelda I and not ALttP.
The manual is a complete walkthrough of the game, but you only get a few pages at a time and often out of order. If most games are holding your hand and leading you around, this game is playing Marco Polo with you.
I didn't know we were counting the metroidvanias and whatnot? practically every game out there has puzzles. It's why i didn't list any point and click games either. I liked Supraland but it's not entirely focused on puzzles.
That's an impossible question to answer. Some puzzle types click for people way faster / easier than others. So even as a novice you might have a harder time with it than say Baby is you just because.
I would say it’s difficult. Though the first person premise is easy to get there’s quite a few puzzles in the game and expansion that really wrung my brain the first time through.
Usually the puzzles are vaguely self-explanatory, even the tetris shit and the thing that snapshot your movement forcing you to think through multiple timelines eventually clicks with you, but there was like three or four puzzles that made me want to strangle someone. >you can put boxes on enemies
I'll never forgive them. 10/10 game.
>you can put boxes on enemies
I've seen this complaint before, guess I got lucky and my dumb brain just instantly decided to try the moment I had a box and some elevation on a roaming mine. Totally understandable to get frustrated by this mechanic which was never explained and had no precedent tho
>you can put boxes on enemies
I've seen this complaint before, guess I got lucky and my dumb brain just instantly decided to try the moment I had a box and some elevation on a roaming mine. Totally understandable to get frustrated by this mechanic which was never explained and had no precedent tho
I didn't have problems with it either. I noticed earlier in the game that you can put boxes on the buzzer orb things so when it came time to do it with the floating mines I was already expecting it to work.
It has a lot of very interesting ideas but for some reason forces you to stare at line puzzles for a lot of the gameplay when the real interesting stuff is in the beautiful world around you
no, one of my favorite games. I had to look for one puzzle tho, the ship one. I knew what I had to do, but getting the answer was simply too hard for me.
>the Looker
Unironically one of the most amusing satires in gaming, but it means almost nothing if you haven't already suffered through Jonathan Blow "genius."
Cause the only people whod play the Looker already like the Witness so making fun of it would be a good add on
People who hate the Witness review it too
I didn't feel like the open world added enough to make up for the time it wastes as you wander around looking for puzzles. The gimmick of finding "puzzles" hidden in the world wears thin once you realize trying to find the one spot to stand so your perspective makes a jumble of lines into a straight path isn't really a puzzle. There's no way to engage with it logically, you wander until you find something you can engage with. The actual puzzles are boring too when you get to them.
The game is supposed to be made for someone like me but I didn't like it. I think it was too pretentious and open world did more harm than good. Also I was getting headache from it.
The Witness is decent but it's a crime they didn't make it more like Myst and filled it with bland line puzzles instead of really using the environment. This game could have been a 9/10
Portal 2, though it's more game than puzzle. It's simply fun.
The Witness feels incredibly slow and many of the puzzle mechanics aren't intuitive at all. If you want to 100% the game―without looking up the solutions online―then you'll be stuck for possibly weeks roaming around at a snail's pace while you're looking for some really moronic environmental puzzles such as one that's in the sky and only doable from a specific location on the island at a very specific time of the day. The rest of the game feels satisfying though.
How hard is this game for a puzzle game novice?
Currently, I'm playing through it and there have only been 2 optional puzzles that I skipped (but will come back to later). The worst that I've encountered so far were tetris locks at a 'messenger's abode' or whatever it's called. One of them in particular took me what felt like half an hour, but I did solve it. Overall, the puzzles are for the most part pretty satisfying.
Maybe I'll get around to playing all the games i have from this developer in my library some day. Generally seems to have the reputation for making some of the best games. Opus Magnum being among the best of them.
Yeah, I loved Opus Magnum. It scratches the autism itch.
Yeah, I haven't played the others yet, but I plan to. It's still undeniably giving off autistic vibes though, but I agree with you that it's probably not as technical as the others.
I hope you enjoy them, Anon. I love SpaceChem and ExaPunks, and while I love what Shenzhen/TIS/etc are doing I hate the concept of basically doing what I do for work as a video game so that's where I draw my line.
I saw to the ending a few years ago and I remember it has you going to what appears to be heaven, then later walking out of a dam with while stroking a cat but those are all the details I remember. I'm going to be playing it soon, does that spoil anything important about the plot?
Just refinished replaying through Talos right now. Currently on the DLC which I had never played. Some of these puzzles make me want to blow my brains out.
RtG is probably one of my favorite expansions of all time. I felt Talos Principle just _barely_ was willing to explore its puzzle mechanics by the end of the game. RtG was the developers making levels after they finally understood how their puzzle mechanics worked.
I hear that most puzzle games are designed then scrapped and rebuilt because the developers themselves didn't really understand how their game would work when they start making it. I think Croteam's inexperience making puzzlers showed in TPP, because it felt like they stuck too rigidly to some of the things they designed before they really "got" their game.
I dunno, my experience with the genre is limited because puzzles games need to give me that same level of interaction to keep me interested, if i don't have that same kind of level of physical interaction or manipulation of the environments then it's boring to me. Another one that's fairly short but impressed me was a VR game called The Last Clockwinder. It's a very simple game about automation but also very engaging. Those would be my top 4 puzzle games.
> Antichamber
I'm almost done with antichamber (more than 2/3 of wall is completed) and it's more of an audio-visual experience than a puzzle game. None of the puzzles have been difficult so far. The main difficulty lies in wondering whether you've got the right tools to progress and getting lost. And I really hate those messages that are scattered, it's "live love laugh" tier. Otherwise it's okay but I was expecting more.
Myst isn't hard, just takes notes. You find a bunch of weird obscure stuff you can't figure out until you read a page that tells you exactly what to do with it. It's more of an exploration game than a logical puzzle-solving one from what I remember
Try myst before you decide that, the rest of the games will require you to take notes and really run around and explore but myst itself is very easy to get into and rather straight forward
Favourite is The Witness. Very elegant and the Island is just extremely beautiful and comfy. OP is up there too, definitely one of the best attempts at making a philosophical video game I've seen.
Also I highly recommend to everyone who likes puzzle games to check out Filament, really underrated one
Maybe I'll get around to playing all the games i have from this developer in my library some day. Generally seems to have the reputation for making some of the best games. Opus Magnum being among the best of them.
I'm really liking Infinifactory but I'm getting filtered at world 6
Loved Talos Principle but I also got filtered towards the end with the double time mechanic shit
>have amazing tech at hand >don't really know how to properly make a game out of it >fill it with fricking obnoxious "I JUST MOVED SHIT WITH MY FREAKING MIND!" tier narration
what a disappointment that was
This game mechanic fricks with my mind in a way that makes the portal gun look simple. I straight up cannot suspend my disbelief with it because my brain won't stop screaming at me that what I'm seeing is impossible.
>have amazing tech at hand >don't really know how to properly make a game out of it >fill it with fricking obnoxious "I JUST MOVED SHIT WITH MY FREAKING MIND!" tier narration
what a disappointment that was
Just a heads up about an upcoming game that could have some potential to put on your radar, This game is all about physics based puzzling and platforming and is heavily inspired by Half-Life & Portal. Check out the steam page for it, there's a free playable demo up.
Legitimately quit this game because I couldn't stand the "but what if robots were humans?!?!?!?" posturing that I saw in every terminal.
It felt like it was pretending to be philosophical when it kept pushing that the answer it wanted you to arrive at was "yes, robots deserve human rights". I thought that was so dumb I stopped playing.
The puzzles weren't great either, but I wasn't very far into it.
The Talos Principle is my favorite puzzle game ever but I wasn't too fond of the writing in the main game either. It's philosophy 101 at times. All the ideas they were going for were much better written and executed in the DLC. It's a shame you stopped. The puzzles are worth solving, the OST and the worlds are really beautiful. And definitely go for the DLC. Story-wise, it's the best part of the game and the puzzles are just as fun.
if you felt like you were getting pushed into saying robots are human it's probably because you were saying robots aren't human, the terminals argue against any position you take and force you into choosing between moronic strawman options because milton is an insufferable contrarian with no beliefs of his own
The Talos Principle is my favorite puzzle game ever but I wasn't too fond of the writing in the main game either. It's philosophy 101 at times. All the ideas they were going for were much better written and executed in the DLC. It's a shame you stopped. The puzzles are worth solving, the OST and the worlds are really beautiful. And definitely go for the DLC. Story-wise, it's the best part of the game and the puzzles are just as fun.
I thought the writing was really good. I liked that the computer challenged my beliefs, and even though you can only respond from at most 6 dialogue options I thought most of them were pretty reasonable. You probably won't find your exact nuanced stance on an issue represented in the choices, but you'll find something decent. I liked arguing against the computer, especially because you can force him into contradiction and basically break him
t. master's degree in philosophy
Another nice touch is that you can accuse Milton of "cheating." To me it felt like an acknowledgement from the designers that your response options are limited.
The writing wasn't bad but it was a bit basic in the main game. I prefer their approach in the DLC where they conveyed the same ideas through interactions between the androids in an old-school textboard and their interpretations of what humans were and how they would act like.
Milton was my favorite part in the main game, don't know how anyone could hate that adorable contrarian.
I already listed my favorite games earlier, but i also wanted to make some honorable mentions of exemplary games in the genre that i truly do believe that everyone should play. It doesn't matter whether you like puzzle games or not. Anyone could get on board with these.
I feel like Superliminal didn't explore the optical illusion angle enough. They introduce new twists constantly and that's nice but they're too easy, you're expecting to do more of what the game showcases but you never get deep into it.
The last hour was kind of repetitive too.
I hope Talos 2 is good.
Semi related but SS4 was mediocre so I fear for the quality of this game. Siberian Mayhem was better but that one wasn't even made by Croteam.
Also really hope they fixed the engine since in SS4 was so bad even looking at terrain in certain maps was enough to kill your performance since they went pants on head moronic with the ridiculously complex topography system
They flat out dropped Serious Engine for UE5 instead.
And if you think SS4 was fricked from Monday to Sunday in terms of performance then have fun with TTP2 - since they used all that Nanite, Lumen and whatnot shit in it'll probably run like a mess, too.
Hell, the space requirements are already twice as high as the ones for SS4 and its unoptimized assets and TEN FRICKING TIMES higher than the original TTP.
are you talking about elohim or the "philosophy 101" recordings from the scientist?
because if you're talking about elohim, I'm gonna karate chop you in the throat
I'd recommend Braid, the puzzles there are really cool, they're all in the context of a typical mario-like platformer, like there's an entire world where the timeline of the levels is mapped to your progress towards the right side of the screen, so you rewind and speed up time in the levels by walking back and forth. The writing is pretentious garbage, don't read the any of the dialog, just solve the puzzles. Probably pirate the game too because the devs a moron but damn if he can't whip up a puzzle.
Yeah it's pretty good.
Has quite a bit of mechanics, if you stick to the main story the difficulty is well balanced and it has a ridiculous amount of sidecontent, easter eggs and hidden puzzles which can be a b***h to complete.
The DLC is harder in general though.
Portal Reloaded is definitely worth a crack, it's just as good as the actual games and the puzzles get harder than the base game too. It adds a third portal that connects to itself but sends you from the present to the far future and back, the puzzles are built around time travel.
Portal 2 and Obra Dinn are my favorites. They aren't hard games but I like their presentation. Currently playing Stephen's Sausage Roll and it's great.
If you go to increpare's website, you'll see that SSR isn't even close to the weirdest game he's made.
Some of my favorites are Talos, Witness, Myst 1-3 (especially Riven), Obduction, Antichamber, The Room series, Kairo, and Taiji. No particular order. Also stuff like Strange Horticulture and Return of the Obra Dinn. If it's a puzzle/mystery adventure, I'm in.
Is there a way to play riven the way it was supposed to be played. I tried it and it looked like utter shit on my modern pc. Is that just a setting that I missed or is it stuck in like 400x400 resolution?
We need terms to distinguish arcadey puzzle games like tetris and wario's woods from the "take as much time as you want, your moron brain is going to need it" genre like baba is you.
How much prior knowledge of programming and stuff do you need for the big-brain Zachtronics games that aren't Opus Magnum? I catch on to stuff quick but if I can't figure it out in-game I'm not going to learn an entire trade just to play it.
>How much prior knowledge of programming and stuff do you need for the big-brain Zachtronics games that aren't Opus Magnum?
Zero. I beat Shenzhen IO and Exapunks before knowing how to program, but if you enjoy these games, you might as well learn programming for fun.
>if you enjoy these games, you might as well learn programming for fun.
Shenzhen isn't programming, it's like doing leetcode, which is fun. Real programming is reading shitty API documentation and design patterns, not inventing and using fun algorithms like Shenzhen/leetcode.
I love any level that allows me to create a massive swarm
>How much prior knowledge of programming and stuff do you need for the big-brain Zachtronics games that aren't Opus Magnum?
Zero. I beat Shenzhen IO and Exapunks before knowing how to program, but if you enjoy these games, you might as well learn programming for fun.
>might as well learn programming for fun
For better or worse Exapunks pushed me into studying computer science
Mostly very famous games like zachtronics games, riven, obra dinn etc that everyone and their mother has heard of. But I'm a puzzle enthusiast so I'll recommend some games that not everyone might've heard of instead
>hexcells games
fun and unique take on the minesweeper formula that's also dirt cheap >dreams in the witch house
kind of unconventional point and click puzzle game with a survival/economy mechanic(it gets kinda tedious so maybe play on easy or save semi regularly to avoid any mishaps) based on a lovecraft story >the room games
most people have probably heard of them but still, solid traditional point and click puzzle games >case of the golden idol
if you're aching for more obra dinn this is a light version of it, kind of short so the price might not be justified >everyday genius squarelogic
gay ass title but it's a pretty fun sodoku offshoot with a shitton of content and a low pricetag >snakebird
very simple formula with some surprisingly complex puzzles I didn't care for it that much but others might like it >manifold garden
kind of similar to antichamber I guess, idk how else to explain it, like antichamber it's quite the visual/auditory experience >chants of sennar
this is the most recent puzzle game i played, it's about exploring a world, solving puzzles and piecing together the local language. Fun but expensive for its length
Fffffrick yeah puzzle thread. I beat Talos Principle last month and have been dying to talk about it here but didn't see a thread. I've only played Talos Principle and the Portal Games for puzzle games and I love them both.
There were two times I had to cheat: once on Criss Cross Conundrum Advanced I asked a friend and they simply said "go around," and that was enough to get it. The second time was the very last move of the very last puzzle at the top of the tower and I just straight up looked up the solution. I guess the time limit threw me off. I only got about 12 stars though, frick those things. Which puzzles do you remember as being fricking hard?
In the dessert, there was a puzzle with that damn thing that recorded your movements, and you had to place like 4 items in switchs to open consecutive doors. I almost had it working in mind my but said frick it, and watched a youtube video.
>Which puzzles do you remember as being fricking hard?
One of the stars in the first world (1-3, maybe?) is guarded by an arcane puzzle that most people simply cannot be expected to solve. It's not just that it's difficult, it's simply bad design. Most people will not have any idea how to interpret the clue they are given. The rest of the puzzles and stars are perfectly fine.
Try the DLC. It's much more challenging, and I greatly enjoyed it.
In the dessert, there was a puzzle with that damn thing that recorded your movements, and you had to place like 4 items in switchs to open consecutive doors. I almost had it working in mind my but said frick it, and watched a youtube video.
Also one of the puzzles in the third world really got me, I don't remember what it's called but there's a recorder, a platform and a couple of cubes that you have to shuffle to the top of a tower thing so you can open some barriers. I got both of the achievements for taking too long on that one puzzle.
I looked up a couple of star puzzle solutions: the clock with the QR code that arbitrarily won't translate, and the star on the tower that you have to fall to reach
There's also one puzzle in Road to Gehenna called Pendulum that I had to ask a friend for hints. Also the crater puzzle which is probably the hardest non-star puzzle in the entire game with the hardest star puzzle in the game.
I also looked up a few of the admin world puzzle solutions because frick that.
I looked up videos for all the stars after I was done with the game and holy shit that star puzzle with the clock and the QR code. What the frick were they thinking. Don't you have to like translate some hexidecimal too or some shit?
Yeah it's something like >scan the qr code with your physical phone or a QR-reader website or something >it spits out a bunch of hex codes >translating those gives you "The eagle has landed" >somehow have to figure out how that relates to 2 button inputs on a clock
It's especially stupid because it's the only puzzle that relies on out-of-game knowledge to complete and one of two QR codes in the game that won't automatically translate unlike the other hundreds of them, and Croteam refuses to change it.
It's incredibly stupid and a Google search will reveal there is no shortage of discussion threads where people vent about this star. An arcane puzzle is a bad puzzle. Period.
How we feel about Islanders? It's a simple puzzle game disguised as a city builder but I found it quite addicting once you start building bigger buildings.
portal/2, the mechanics and look and feel of everything is just so right. I think The Witness is the better base package when it comes to just solving puzzles, but portals workshop / map maker stuff lets you have that sort of experience as well
Talos devs are on record saying that Dystopian Sci-Fi is cringe and overused and for that they have my endless respect.
It's kinda funny cos for anyone here who has also played Serious Sam 4/SM you can really tell it was the Talos team that wrote all the dialog since they make it more of a story about all the little things that make humanity worth fighting for.
Have you seen the new trailer? If anything else, it's looking beautiful and we get new tools for puzzles.
Same writing team from talos 1 and some new ost by damjan and Chris Christodoulou,
so its going to be atmospheric kino.
The original ran prefectly on my setup and looked good to me. The demo runs ok on lowest quality preset and looks terrible by comparison. Not only is everything flickering like crazy but things look like playdough and attention to detail is also lost. No waves when stepping through water. Two lasers crossing doesn't have the spark at the exact intersection point etc. Just a lot of soul is missing.
UE5 is such a grabage frickig engine.
Don't know if it's because devs haven't learned it yet or what.
they tech demos looks amazing, but all the games look like trash, worse than UE4.
>talos 1 still has antipiracy which fricks with your game if you use any kind of special k/reshade DLLs >talos VR latest versions are still uncracked
pray for the anons that try to play this demo early
There's a surprisingly big piracy scene around them, even the standalone oculus quest has huge 500+GB torrent sync folders going around
Croteam went wild with their antipiracy in recent years tho, even voksi (empress) said a couple years back that he doubts they can be cracked that easily now
Talos 2 will probably get a crack around release but doubt crackers will bother with the updates for it
8 months ago
Anonymous
>There's a surprisingly big piracy scene around them
Gimme some links, I want to pirate PCVR version of Sniper Elite, for example.
8 months ago
Anonymous
for PCVR just check cs.rin.ru, if there's any crack available it should be on there
just chiming in again to say that im playing this game on a dogshit laptop with a 1650 benq and I get 60fps easily on medium settings
The croation fricks actually optimised their game huge
Yea not sure how I feel about dailies and such in a puzzle game but had quite a bit of fun too. The movement / flying around was pretty alright and a good mix of puzzles. Maze section in pyramid maybe went on for bit too long as well but if they fix up the performance looking forward to it.
Has DLSS & HDR support, HDR is bugged out for me though, pic rel is literally how it looks on my screen, with that weird banding around the logo etc
Had same kind of shit with AC6's HDR too, there was some dll fix for that though, hopefully croteam can sort this for release
So why do Croteam games look that way? They are instantly recognizable from the engine. I always feel like it's the temperature of light they use for global illumination or something, but I don't really know.
Not that agree that Hotline Miami is a puzzle game but he's probably referring to the concept of the "combat puzzle" where you have to find the optimal solution and path to killing enemies as efficiently as possible instead of just killing indiscriminately. The term was also used a lot of Doom Eternal. I.e. first prioritize killing this support guy with this specific weapon first, then prioritize killing this heavy guy with this specific weapon next.
The first game is laid out to punish you for trying to play it like a twitch shooter, so unless you're really coked up you have to plan out how you'll clear each room in advance, which enemies will aggro, where they will come from, how they are equipped etc, basically like a puzzle game. That's my take anyway.
From SS3 onward they always were a mix of three things to me: >extremely obvious building block-esque usage of bought/photoscanned assets >somewhat amateurish self-made stuff that screams "will do its job" >"raw", clean graphics, as in no excessive use of filters, post processing effects, etc. unless it's absolutely necessary
I'm not liking the UE5 nanite they're using, going 10 meters away from something turns it into a melted blob, and then running back up to it you can see the details slowly fade back in, ew
That's with all the settings cranked up too
Yep, Fork Parker, Devolver's attempt at memetic faux-punk aesthetic by skewering the suits that they themselves still are. It wasn't bad, but kinda cringe.
Portal 2. I know these days it's probably considered very reddit with the heckin lemons and cakes etc. but I'm not even gonna pretend that I'm too cool for that shit. Also braid. It brings me pleasant memories. Great indie games were still a bit of a curiosity for me back then.
True. All the portal clones lack one very important thing — cool gimmick. I mean, in portal you have fricking portals, you can have fun in empty room with the portal gun. Other first person puzzlers usually have nothing to compare, and they are gloryfied switch puzzles.
>other robots
I hate it
It was nice when it was just great looking locations and a disembodied god voice
Now we're gonna have to attempt to care about stupid robots
finished the demo - skipped all the dialog and story-related stuff for now until the actual game releases so I'm not gonna comment on those
pro: >runs surprisingly well and overall doesn't look too bad even on medium >still feels like Talos and a Croteam game, including being able to go wherever you fricking want, including out of bounds for some game- and puzzle-breaking shenanigans >all the fauna here and there like frogs jumping out of the water and across the road >top tier music as usual >exploration and secrets; however....
con: >...the areas are way too fricking big and convoluted for no reason to the point where they saw the need to add a fricking Skyrim compass (that you can thankfully disable) - yes, 1 also had tons of walking around but not THAT much >not really a fan of that Nanite stuff (I'd go so far and say that the parallax mapping on the Egypt assets in 1 looked more appealing than the actual geometry in 2) and some effects like mist above the water looked kinda ugly >you still are using your makeshift Vive-HMD/tracker monstrosity for your mocap, aren't you? >stuff like resetting and "dying" feel less elegant >tons of small issues that'll probably be fixed until release like
"Finished" the demo, Liked the bait and switch they did throwing you past puzzles of Talos 1 in the prologue only to completely change genres and play like an adventure game with dialogue choices and a goofy ass bethesda NPC talk cam
Had to use a skip though so I really didn't finish it.
If any anon figures out the solution to puzzle 6 or 2-1 please enlighten me because I got stumped for around 20 minutes before giving up.
Road to Gehenna was the first turn in that direction, and I think they handled it well. I'm excited that they're trying something else besides just making a new level pack for Talos Principle. Hopefully it pays off.
So far I'd say it's going well, the voice acting minus Prometheus was pretty good, dialogue has enough charm and the animations are kind of janky but because they're robots it works surprisingly well. And still at least in the demo after the New Jerusalem introduction they throw you straight into a puzzle hub alone with the occasional exposition so it's pretty similar to Talos 1 in that regard, minus Elohim.
Art direction is pretty nice too.
And speaking of modern architacture, now I want new Serious Sam across multitude of planets, but not like in 2, I want alien locales similar to those environments.
I don't like it. It's a logical progression of the story, but a major part of what I enjoyed about the first game was being the only person in the entire world.
Honestly couldn't give a single frick as long as the puzzles are good and you still need to think outside of the box for stars and secrets.
It's not like I was reading all that babys first ghost in the machine bullshit in the first game anyway.
The writers and devs
Literally doesn't mean anything.
You reading shit in the first game and listening to the audio logs and "god" talking to you can be considered the same.
>reading text and listening to God is the same thing
No, no it's not. It's a very different approach to story telling and tone, and the writers are open about that. They wanted to do something new with the sequel for better or worse.
I'm hoping there are still moments of that within 2. I'm OK with it being different most of the time as long as they can still hit the same notes they did in 1 occasionally.
>Feels bland and soulless >deep sense of wonder Talos 1 had
You cannot be serious.
You mean the Serious Sam 3 asset swap of the first game wasn't bland?
>Feels bland and soulless >deep sense of wonder Talos 1 had
You cannot be serious.
You mean the Serious Sam 3 asset swap of the first game wasn't bland?
Guys, frick you both. Realistic Serious assets are extremely soulful.
i am too stupid for this puzzle, please give me a hint or something. I know you access this one by falling from the cliff above but I can't seem to do anything.
Then I broke the puzzle, since the teleporter doesn't work. Shit, I'll try to go to the first area and come back since reloading checkpoint didn't let me interact with it.
The entire intro level plus four puzzles and some exploration in two worlds each, so between 30 to two hours content depending on how quick you go through it.
We shouldn't call tetris "puzzle", to be honest.
But speaking of tetris, try tetris effect, in VR, if you can.
Again, tetris isn't exactly puzzle, but tetris effect do feel like galaxy brain meme. You are ENLIGHTENED.
any tunic enthusiasts beat it entirely blind? I went through it recently but I swear some of the puzzles for 100% (especially the final one) blew my mind even after I read the guide for them, genuinely never felt so stupid in my life
amazing game though either way, true ending was way too cute
So finished the demo and it runs okay at the lowest settings on my Steam Deck. The game still looks beautiful and I enjoyed the areas and the music. The puzzles were easy but it was a nice warm up and the new puzzle mechanics are cool. Can't wait to explore the rest. Definitely getting it day one but I think I'll have to get myself a new pc first.
the portal games
I did not get the kitty kat ending
This or Baba is You
Is tunic actually a puzzle game or are you counting the occasional sliding block puzzle? I thought it was a zelda clone
it has some great puzzles
>Some
So it's not a puzzle game, thanks
The only thing that can be considered a puzzle in it is deciphering the manual's cryptic clues.
I put off playing it because I thought the same
If you enjoy cryptography I would recommend it
Without spoiling too much. Tunic has three main puzzles:
>figuring out what the manual is telling you to do
>environmental puzzles
>deciphering the manual
The first is needed to beat the game, the second is needed to 100% the game, and the third is for your own amusement, to solve some ARG, or if you're really so desperate and you absolutely can't figure out where to go (if you're really at this point, you probably shouldn't be playing the game). When people call it a Zelda clone, they mean it's Zelda I and not ALttP.
The manual is a complete walkthrough of the game, but you only get a few pages at a time and often out of order. If most games are holding your hand and leading you around, this game is playing Marco Polo with you.
Sounds interesting. I usually write off games that have any kind of combat but I may throw it on my wishlist.
baba is you
This got way too hard for me and I’m not typically moronic
look at this brainlet incapable of thinking 200 steps ahead for extremely specific solutions
That one. So pumped for the sequel. I hope my shitbox can run it , I have the min requirements but I also want it to look good.
Any Zachtronics game
Talos is pretty good too though
Best recent one is Void Stranger
Talos is up there
Really loved Supraland (+Crash DLC)
>Supraland
It's a puzzle game? It looked like a 3D action platformer to me
It's more of a 3d metroidvania, but with focus on puzzles and exploration, rather than combat. Definitely a good and fun game, would recommend
loved supraland+crash+six inches under.
I didn't know we were counting the metroidvanias and whatnot? practically every game out there has puzzles. It's why i didn't list any point and click games either. I liked Supraland but it's not entirely focused on puzzles.
Supraland really caught me by surprise.
A few years ago I would've said Fez. Now it's Tunic. Fez is still worth the playthrough, but if you can only play one, choose Tunic
How hard is this game for a puzzle game novice?
That's an impossible question to answer. Some puzzle types click for people way faster / easier than others. So even as a novice you might have a harder time with it than say Baby is you just because.
The main path is very easy and intuitive, most of the difficulty comes from the puzzles for the optional collectibles.
Agreed, solving a level I was stumped on for over a week (crushers) was one of the most satisfying moments I've had in gaming.
For just finishing the game, it's pretty easy.
If you want to 100% without a guide, it's autistically difficult.
for me the tetris block shit made me look up solutions online
I would say it’s difficult. Though the first person premise is easy to get there’s quite a few puzzles in the game and expansion that really wrung my brain the first time through.
It's okay. The optional puzzles are fricking hell tho.
Usually the puzzles are vaguely self-explanatory, even the tetris shit and the thing that snapshot your movement forcing you to think through multiple timelines eventually clicks with you, but there was like three or four puzzles that made me want to strangle someone.
>you can put boxes on enemies
I'll never forgive them. 10/10 game.
>you can put boxes on enemies
I've seen this complaint before, guess I got lucky and my dumb brain just instantly decided to try the moment I had a box and some elevation on a roaming mine. Totally understandable to get frustrated by this mechanic which was never explained and had no precedent tho
I didn't have problems with it either. I noticed earlier in the game that you can put boxes on the buzzer orb things so when it came time to do it with the floating mines I was already expecting it to work.
Play Portal 1 and 2 if you haven’t already. Then play Talos.
Main story is enjoyable, not too easy but doesn't filter anyone either.
If you wanna 100% it though it's going full fricking schizo
i've heart the witness was shit, is it true?
It has a lot of very interesting ideas but for some reason forces you to stare at line puzzles for a lot of the gameplay when the real interesting stuff is in the beautiful world around you
no, one of my favorite games. I had to look for one puzzle tho, the ship one. I knew what I had to do, but getting the answer was simply too hard for me.
It's extremely pretentious. Play the Looker instead.
The Looker is a complete miss if you haven't played the Witness first.
>the Looker
Unironically one of the most amusing satires in gaming, but it means almost nothing if you haven't already suffered through Jonathan Blow "genius."
This game annoyed me so much with that house we couldnt enter
But I guess thats part of the joke
>satire is better reviewed than its subject
sasuga
Cause the only people whod play the Looker already like the Witness so making fun of it would be a good add on
People who hate the Witness review it too
>the witness
mobile game
I didn't feel like the open world added enough to make up for the time it wastes as you wander around looking for puzzles. The gimmick of finding "puzzles" hidden in the world wears thin once you realize trying to find the one spot to stand so your perspective makes a jumble of lines into a straight path isn't really a puzzle. There's no way to engage with it logically, you wander until you find something you can engage with. The actual puzzles are boring too when you get to them.
The game is supposed to be made for someone like me but I didn't like it. I think it was too pretentious and open world did more harm than good. Also I was getting headache from it.
The Witness is decent but it's a crime they didn't make it more like Myst and filled it with bland line puzzles instead of really using the environment. This game could have been a 9/10
All the morons hate it because of the audiologs
Its an extremely good game and probably the best environmental puzzle game period
play braid instead
Portal 2, though it's more game than puzzle. It's simply fun.
The Witness feels incredibly slow and many of the puzzle mechanics aren't intuitive at all. If you want to 100% the game―without looking up the solutions online―then you'll be stuck for possibly weeks roaming around at a snail's pace while you're looking for some really moronic environmental puzzles such as one that's in the sky and only doable from a specific location on the island at a very specific time of the day. The rest of the game feels satisfying though.
Currently, I'm playing through it and there have only been 2 optional puzzles that I skipped (but will come back to later). The worst that I've encountered so far were tetris locks at a 'messenger's abode' or whatever it's called. One of them in particular took me what felt like half an hour, but I did solve it. Overall, the puzzles are for the most part pretty satisfying.
Yeah, I loved Opus Magnum. It scratches the autism itch.
Opus Magnum is like the least autistic of Zachtronic's output. That includes Last Call BBS.
Yeah, I haven't played the others yet, but I plan to. It's still undeniably giving off autistic vibes though, but I agree with you that it's probably not as technical as the others.
I hope you enjoy them, Anon. I love SpaceChem and ExaPunks, and while I love what Shenzhen/TIS/etc are doing I hate the concept of basically doing what I do for work as a video game so that's where I draw my line.
stupid puzzle game made me cry
still haven't played road to gheanna
I saw to the ending a few years ago and I remember it has you going to what appears to be heaven, then later walking out of a dam with while stroking a cat but those are all the details I remember. I'm going to be playing it soon, does that spoil anything important about the plot?
Not really. That's just one of the endings.
Just refinished replaying through Talos right now. Currently on the DLC which I had never played. Some of these puzzles make me want to blow my brains out.
Wait until you get to the star world. I've never felt so stuck from such small puzzles.
Dude the dlc is awesome, I actually felt invested in the story thanks to the interaction with the computers and the puzzles are great
I loved the game but i didn't brain or will to do the dlc. It's way harder, and i didn't care enough, or maybe i was tired after playin the main game.
RtG is probably one of my favorite expansions of all time. I felt Talos Principle just _barely_ was willing to explore its puzzle mechanics by the end of the game. RtG was the developers making levels after they finally understood how their puzzle mechanics worked.
I hear that most puzzle games are designed then scrapped and rebuilt because the developers themselves didn't really understand how their game would work when they start making it. I think Croteam's inexperience making puzzlers showed in TPP, because it felt like they stuck too rigidly to some of the things they designed before they really "got" their game.
Very excited for TPP2 as a result.
Talos Principle, Portal 1 & 2, Antichamber.
I'm not smart enough for the harder games like Myst.
I love antichamber but it is way too short.
I dunno, my experience with the genre is limited because puzzles games need to give me that same level of interaction to keep me interested, if i don't have that same kind of level of physical interaction or manipulation of the environments then it's boring to me. Another one that's fairly short but impressed me was a VR game called The Last Clockwinder. It's a very simple game about automation but also very engaging. Those would be my top 4 puzzle games.
I'm going to check this one out, it looks cool. Any other VR puzzle game recommendations?
>Any other VR puzzle game recommendations?
A Fisherman's Tale, Another Fisherman's Tale, Maskmaker, Red Matter 1 & 2.
Escape the room games: I Expect You to Die 1, 2 & 3, The Room VR: A Dark Matter
I almost forgot to mention Shores of Loci
and Floor Plan 2, so that's a few more to try.
And in case you didn't know this: the MYST remake actually supports VR. Technically Obduction did as well, but the implementation isn't as good.
> Antichamber
I'm almost done with antichamber (more than 2/3 of wall is completed) and it's more of an audio-visual experience than a puzzle game. None of the puzzles have been difficult so far. The main difficulty lies in wondering whether you've got the right tools to progress and getting lost. And I really hate those messages that are scattered, it's "live love laugh" tier. Otherwise it's okay but I was expecting more.
Myst isn't hard, just takes notes. You find a bunch of weird obscure stuff you can't figure out until you read a page that tells you exactly what to do with it. It's more of an exploration game than a logical puzzle-solving one from what I remember
Try myst before you decide that, the rest of the games will require you to take notes and really run around and explore but myst itself is very easy to get into and rather straight forward
Does Legend of Grimrock count?
It should since puzzles are like half of the games.
And LOG games are fricking amazing.
Not to mention the custom 60+ hour custom campaigns with like 500+ secrets in them, some of which are EXTREMELY obscure.
Favourite is The Witness. Very elegant and the Island is just extremely beautiful and comfy. OP is up there too, definitely one of the best attempts at making a philosophical video game I've seen.
Also I highly recommend to everyone who likes puzzle games to check out Filament, really underrated one
puzzle games are the opposite of what i want from vidya
Maybe I'll get around to playing all the games i have from this developer in my library some day. Generally seems to have the reputation for making some of the best games. Opus Magnum being among the best of them.
*Opus Magnum being the easiest, and therefore the most popular
What's the most difficult zachtronics game that I should play for extra Ganker-cred?
TIS-100
Thanks. This actually looks fun. Most programming games I tried were shit and easy.
t. programmer
I prefer the sequel TIS-NU75
This, and beat all the bonus levels (I haven't lol)
I'm really liking Infinifactory but I'm getting filtered at world 6
Loved Talos Principle but I also got filtered towards the end with the double time mechanic shit
>somehow clawed my way up to this world in baba is you
>get here
ok what the actual frick
Figure out what all does and go from there.
>have amazing tech at hand
>don't really know how to properly make a game out of it
>fill it with fricking obnoxious "I JUST MOVED SHIT WITH MY FREAKING MIND!" tier narration
what a disappointment that was
Is it playable with dialogue volume off?
This game mechanic fricks with my mind in a way that makes the portal gun look simple. I straight up cannot suspend my disbelief with it because my brain won't stop screaming at me that what I'm seeing is impossible.
Wut gaem?
Viewfinder
Just a heads up about an upcoming game that could have some potential to put on your radar, This game is all about physics based puzzling and platforming and is heavily inspired by Half-Life & Portal. Check out the steam page for it, there's a free playable demo up.
Legitimately quit this game because I couldn't stand the "but what if robots were humans?!?!?!?" posturing that I saw in every terminal.
It felt like it was pretending to be philosophical when it kept pushing that the answer it wanted you to arrive at was "yes, robots deserve human rights". I thought that was so dumb I stopped playing.
The puzzles weren't great either, but I wasn't very far into it.
A. You don't have to use the terminals
B. It tailors the questions based on how you answer
C. You can break it quite easily.
The Talos Principle is my favorite puzzle game ever but I wasn't too fond of the writing in the main game either. It's philosophy 101 at times. All the ideas they were going for were much better written and executed in the DLC. It's a shame you stopped. The puzzles are worth solving, the OST and the worlds are really beautiful. And definitely go for the DLC. Story-wise, it's the best part of the game and the puzzles are just as fun.
if you felt like you were getting pushed into saying robots are human it's probably because you were saying robots aren't human, the terminals argue against any position you take and force you into choosing between moronic strawman options because milton is an insufferable contrarian with no beliefs of his own
I thought the writing was really good. I liked that the computer challenged my beliefs, and even though you can only respond from at most 6 dialogue options I thought most of them were pretty reasonable. You probably won't find your exact nuanced stance on an issue represented in the choices, but you'll find something decent. I liked arguing against the computer, especially because you can force him into contradiction and basically break him
t. master's degree in philosophy
Another nice touch is that you can accuse Milton of "cheating." To me it felt like an acknowledgement from the designers that your response options are limited.
The writing wasn't bad but it was a bit basic in the main game. I prefer their approach in the DLC where they conveyed the same ideas through interactions between the androids in an old-school textboard and their interpretations of what humans were and how they would act like.
Milton was my favorite part in the main game, don't know how anyone could hate that adorable contrarian.
>anon has his beliefs challenged and immediately gives up
kek
I already listed my favorite games earlier, but i also wanted to make some honorable mentions of exemplary games in the genre that i truly do believe that everyone should play. It doesn't matter whether you like puzzle games or not. Anyone could get on board with these.
Played Vessel so long ago but I remember only good feelings. Still remember the ending tho
I feel like Superliminal didn't explore the optical illusion angle enough. They introduce new twists constantly and that's nice but they're too easy, you're expecting to do more of what the game showcases but you never get deep into it.
The last hour was kind of repetitive too.
>The Swapper
Surprisingly good game. Didn't the developers for that recently announce they had been working on something else?
Writer of it also wrote talos 1, and I think he's writing talos 2 too based on his xitter posts, but haven't seen it confirmed yet
ahhh right that must have been it.
unironically
I hope for a sequel with more challenging difficulty
If you liked the worlds-within-worlds frickery try Patrick's Parabox.
Have I time travelled? How are people seriously asking if Jonathon fricking Blow is good? He's a known hack
I hope Talos 2 is good.
Semi related but SS4 was mediocre so I fear for the quality of this game. Siberian Mayhem was better but that one wasn't even made by Croteam.
Also really hope they fixed the engine since in SS4 was so bad even looking at terrain in certain maps was enough to kill your performance since they went pants on head moronic with the ridiculously complex topography system
They flat out dropped Serious Engine for UE5 instead.
And if you think SS4 was fricked from Monday to Sunday in terms of performance then have fun with TTP2 - since they used all that Nanite, Lumen and whatnot shit in it'll probably run like a mess, too.
Hell, the space requirements are already twice as high as the ones for SS4 and its unoptimized assets and TEN FRICKING TIMES higher than the original TTP.
Cautiously optimistic about Talos but expecting some intrusive and annoying voiceover dialogue which was the worst thing about the first.
are you talking about elohim or the "philosophy 101" recordings from the scientist?
because if you're talking about elohim, I'm gonna karate chop you in the throat
honestly both are pretty inexcusable
wrong answer, kiddo
The dumb foid
Elohim was cool
I'd recommend Braid, the puzzles there are really cool, they're all in the context of a typical mario-like platformer, like there's an entire world where the timeline of the levels is mapped to your progress towards the right side of the screen, so you rewind and speed up time in the levels by walking back and forth. The writing is pretentious garbage, don't read the any of the dialog, just solve the puzzles. Probably pirate the game too because the devs a moron but damn if he can't whip up a puzzle.
Is Fez any good?
is it actually good? i have it on steam but haven't played it yet
Yeah it's pretty good.
Has quite a bit of mechanics, if you stick to the main story the difficulty is well balanced and it has a ridiculous amount of sidecontent, easter eggs and hidden puzzles which can be a b***h to complete.
The DLC is harder in general though.
This game filtered me hard
How? What exactly filtered you?
I don't remember anymore, I just remember that I progressed for about an hour or so and then I was stuck not being able to go further
NTA, but the block farming mechanic is not well-explained and probably stopped a lot of players from ever finding the yellow gun.
Portal Reloaded is definitely worth a crack, it's just as good as the actual games and the puzzles get harder than the base game too. It adds a third portal that connects to itself but sends you from the present to the far future and back, the puzzles are built around time travel.
Portal Revolution is coming very soon as well. The dev/modder Stefan Heinz said it will release this year.
Excellent, I didn't know about this, looking forward to it.
Portals are basically classics
Baba is You gets free points for being very unique
>other mentions
Stephen's Sausage roll
Snakebird
Tametsi (if you are a fan of minesweeper/hexcell-type of puzzle games)
>Stephen's Sausage roll
Came to post this. It's so damn good. Only puzzle I didn't like was "Dam".
I really wonder sometimes how devs come up with these ideas
That particular fricker probably saw DROD and thought "how I can make it as obtuse as possible".
Portal 2 and Obra Dinn are my favorites. They aren't hard games but I like their presentation. Currently playing Stephen's Sausage Roll and it's great.
If you go to increpare's website, you'll see that SSR isn't even close to the weirdest game he's made.
>Tametsi
my Black person
also surprised nobody has mentioned INFRA
It's great, but not exactly puzzl-em-up.
if we are counting grimrock then infra should too
Make way for the GOAT
Some of my favorites are Talos, Witness, Myst 1-3 (especially Riven), Obduction, Antichamber, The Room series, Kairo, and Taiji. No particular order. Also stuff like Strange Horticulture and Return of the Obra Dinn. If it's a puzzle/mystery adventure, I'm in.
Is there a way to play riven the way it was supposed to be played. I tried it and it looked like utter shit on my modern pc. Is that just a setting that I missed or is it stuck in like 400x400 resolution?
Baba Is You isn't even that hard, it's poorly designed and tedious
Pushing boxes
found some charming ost
thanks
return of the obra dinn
Your average Frenchman
I kept thinking he was a polinesian because of those stupid tattoos. like, come on!
Same
This would have been so much better without the "get 3 right and it tells you" mechanic.tmxdmp
Everything this guy does is amazing. I wish his upcoming game wasn't Playdate exclusive
Not my favourite but it's surprisingly decent.
This one should be played coop right? My mates will never allow themselves to be convinced to buy a puzzle game.
Has anyone played this? It's on Gamepass, the story looks stupid but I'm willing to ignore writing for good puzzles
Zhed is a great puzzle game. Give it a try!
Any more android games? I've already got Baba but I want more, puzzle games are the perfect phone games
toad wrecking shit with bombs inside a tree to get his trap lover back? yeah it's puzzle gaming time
We need terms to distinguish arcadey puzzle games like tetris and wario's woods from the "take as much time as you want, your moron brain is going to need it" genre like baba is you.
I think it's action puzzle the "correct" sub-genre
Zero Time Dilemma
>puzzle
>game
pick one
PRETTY GOOD ANSWERS ITT
BUT I DON'T SEE ANY MENTION OF THE KING:
DROD
(IT'S SERIES)
drod is great but holy frick i wish the devs would just modernize that shit
They did it several times, in fact. You now can play "remasters' of original holds in newest engine with unlimited undos and such.
drod is a cheese-dip eating mendicant
My favorite Zachtronics game
How much prior knowledge of programming and stuff do you need for the big-brain Zachtronics games that aren't Opus Magnum? I catch on to stuff quick but if I can't figure it out in-game I'm not going to learn an entire trade just to play it.
>How much prior knowledge of programming and stuff do you need for the big-brain Zachtronics games that aren't Opus Magnum?
Zero. I beat Shenzhen IO and Exapunks before knowing how to program, but if you enjoy these games, you might as well learn programming for fun.
>if you enjoy these games, you might as well learn programming for fun.
Shenzhen isn't programming, it's like doing leetcode, which is fun. Real programming is reading shitty API documentation and design patterns, not inventing and using fun algorithms like Shenzhen/leetcode.
I like this one.
I love any level that allows me to create a massive swarm
>might as well learn programming for fun
For better or worse Exapunks pushed me into studying computer science
Not reaaaally a puzzle game but it's like puzzle-adjacent, I'd bet most people in this thread would get a kick out of it at least
My favorite used to be The Witness but this 100% has it dethroned. What great games.
And of course
Spoilers because if I posted the pic openly there would be too much drama. It's a really good puzzle game, trust me.
yeah bro especially when there's massive tablets explaining the puzzle and solution and then that b***h tells you your percentage chance of success
we were here is max comfy if you have a friend
not a fan of puzzle games but absolutely love this series
Been playing Forever with a friend and it's great
Mostly very famous games like zachtronics games, riven, obra dinn etc that everyone and their mother has heard of. But I'm a puzzle enthusiast so I'll recommend some games that not everyone might've heard of instead
>hexcells games
fun and unique take on the minesweeper formula that's also dirt cheap
>dreams in the witch house
kind of unconventional point and click puzzle game with a survival/economy mechanic(it gets kinda tedious so maybe play on easy or save semi regularly to avoid any mishaps) based on a lovecraft story
>the room games
most people have probably heard of them but still, solid traditional point and click puzzle games
>case of the golden idol
if you're aching for more obra dinn this is a light version of it, kind of short so the price might not be justified
>everyday genius squarelogic
gay ass title but it's a pretty fun sodoku offshoot with a shitton of content and a low pricetag
>snakebird
very simple formula with some surprisingly complex puzzles I didn't care for it that much but others might like it
>manifold garden
kind of similar to antichamber I guess, idk how else to explain it, like antichamber it's quite the visual/auditory experience
>chants of sennar
this is the most recent puzzle game i played, it's about exploring a world, solving puzzles and piecing together the local language. Fun but expensive for its length
YEAH ONE MORE THING
EVERY
EVERY OBRA DINN ENJOYER OUGHT TO TRY
CURSE OF THE GOLDEN IDOL
AND DON'T SLEEP ON SUPRALAND
>Supraland
I dunno; the demo didn't do much for me. Seemed too... basic?
It gets better.
Fffffrick yeah puzzle thread. I beat Talos Principle last month and have been dying to talk about it here but didn't see a thread. I've only played Talos Principle and the Portal Games for puzzle games and I love them both.
There were two times I had to cheat: once on Criss Cross Conundrum Advanced I asked a friend and they simply said "go around," and that was enough to get it. The second time was the very last move of the very last puzzle at the top of the tower and I just straight up looked up the solution. I guess the time limit threw me off. I only got about 12 stars though, frick those things. Which puzzles do you remember as being fricking hard?
In the dessert, there was a puzzle with that damn thing that recorded your movements, and you had to place like 4 items in switchs to open consecutive doors. I almost had it working in mind my but said frick it, and watched a youtube video.
>Which puzzles do you remember as being fricking hard?
One of the stars in the first world (1-3, maybe?) is guarded by an arcane puzzle that most people simply cannot be expected to solve. It's not just that it's difficult, it's simply bad design. Most people will not have any idea how to interpret the clue they are given. The rest of the puzzles and stars are perfectly fine.
Try the DLC. It's much more challenging, and I greatly enjoyed it.
When I grabbed it on sale I just got the base game. But it sounds the DLC is good, so I'll definitely pick it up. thanks bros
This one
Also one of the puzzles in the third world really got me, I don't remember what it's called but there's a recorder, a platform and a couple of cubes that you have to shuffle to the top of a tower thing so you can open some barriers. I got both of the achievements for taking too long on that one puzzle.
I looked up a couple of star puzzle solutions: the clock with the QR code that arbitrarily won't translate, and the star on the tower that you have to fall to reach
There's also one puzzle in Road to Gehenna called Pendulum that I had to ask a friend for hints. Also the crater puzzle which is probably the hardest non-star puzzle in the entire game with the hardest star puzzle in the game.
I also looked up a few of the admin world puzzle solutions because frick that.
I looked up videos for all the stars after I was done with the game and holy shit that star puzzle with the clock and the QR code. What the frick were they thinking. Don't you have to like translate some hexidecimal too or some shit?
Yeah it's something like
>scan the qr code with your physical phone or a QR-reader website or something
>it spits out a bunch of hex codes
>translating those gives you "The eagle has landed"
>somehow have to figure out how that relates to 2 button inputs on a clock
It's especially stupid because it's the only puzzle that relies on out-of-game knowledge to complete and one of two QR codes in the game that won't automatically translate unlike the other hundreds of them, and Croteam refuses to change it.
It's incredibly stupid and a Google search will reveal there is no shortage of discussion threads where people vent about this star. An arcane puzzle is a bad puzzle. Period.
>Croteam refuses to change it
Based integrity Chads
Playing through road to Gehenna right now, it's pretty kino. The discussion board threads are hilarious.
Are you doing gehenna? The puzzles are more complex but after the basegame you have a solid foundation. it's great, imo it's better than the base game
I beat it years ago, but what stuck me most was when you had to direct lasers across one puzzle room to a different one.
>boxes on enemies
Play Solstice. You'll never overlook that possibility ever again.
gotta be antichamber. i'm a sucker for non-euclidean gimmicks.
How we feel about Islanders? It's a simple puzzle game disguised as a city builder but I found it quite addicting once you start building bigger buildings.
fun and an excellent 5 minute timewaster, but once you play for a little while you see that it doesnt have that much content
portal/2, the mechanics and look and feel of everything is just so right. I think The Witness is the better base package when it comes to just solving puzzles, but portals workshop / map maker stuff lets you have that sort of experience as well
Talos devs are on record saying that Dystopian Sci-Fi is cringe and overused and for that they have my endless respect.
It's kinda funny cos for anyone here who has also played Serious Sam 4/SM you can really tell it was the Talos team that wrote all the dialog since they make it more of a story about all the little things that make humanity worth fighting for.
Hopefully talos 2 is also hopiumkino.
Talos 2 actually has a release date?
November 2. It was announced a week or two ago. There are trailers that confirm the date.
Nov 2, its on the steam page.
>i barely meet the min specs
Also why does it say I need an SSD?
Why wont my HDD work you Croatian fricks?
Another case of shit devs leaning on asset streaming a little too much.
Thing is Talos 1 is a ridiculously well optimized game
I dont see why the 2nd one wouldnt be
They moved from their own engine to UE5.
I fricking hate the industry movement away from custom engines to UE5 slop
Possible reason is another engine.
Have you seen the new trailer? If anything else, it's looking beautiful and we get new tools for puzzles.
Same writing team from talos 1 and some new ost by damjan and Chris Christodoulou,
so its going to be atmospheric kino.
I kinda wish they stuck with the original game's engine but that's just me. There's something lost in using UE5.
The original ran prefectly on my setup and looked good to me. The demo runs ok on lowest quality preset and looks terrible by comparison. Not only is everything flickering like crazy but things look like playdough and attention to detail is also lost. No waves when stepping through water. Two lasers crossing doesn't have the spark at the exact intersection point etc. Just a lot of soul is missing.
UE5 is such a grabage frickig engine.
Don't know if it's because devs haven't learned it yet or what.
they tech demos looks amazing, but all the games look like trash, worse than UE4.
>UE5 is trash
Can you give me any examples that are directly comparable?
One or two asspulls or puzzles that require meta knowledge but overall it was pretty fun.
What meta knowledge are you talking about?
HEY Black personhomosexualS I HEARD THAT
DEMO
FOR TALOS 2 IS OUT
Not yet but rumor is there will be one for steam next fest on oct 9
https://steamdb.info/app/2312690/
GO HERE AND CLICK INSTALL AT THE CORNER OF THE SCREEN
Thank you!
what the frick
holy shit, you're officially the based anon of the day
>Finding how you can install the demo is a puzzle in itself
>1 hour download
sadge, anyone manage to get it running yet?
>talos 1 still has antipiracy which fricks with your game if you use any kind of special k/reshade DLLs
>talos VR latest versions are still uncracked
pray for the anons that try to play this demo early
To be fair nobody gives a shit enough to crack VR games
There's a surprisingly big piracy scene around them, even the standalone oculus quest has huge 500+GB torrent sync folders going around
Croteam went wild with their antipiracy in recent years tho, even voksi (empress) said a couple years back that he doubts they can be cracked that easily now
Talos 2 will probably get a crack around release but doubt crackers will bother with the updates for it
>There's a surprisingly big piracy scene around them
Gimme some links, I want to pirate PCVR version of Sniper Elite, for example.
for PCVR just check cs.rin.ru, if there's any crack available it should be on there
I HOPE TO ENCOUNTER UNKILLABLE ARACHNID WITH MACHINEGUN THEN
IN THE PUZZLE GAME
IT WOULD BE AWESOME
20 MINUTES LEFT
> that spoiler
Fricking jelly. It's a bit less than 2 hours for me and I started my download 10 minutes ago. Having shitty internet connection sucks.
AMERICAN INTERNET EVERYONE
Overall download time is 30 minutes
finished downloading and it works
just chiming in again to say that im playing this game on a dogshit laptop with a 1650 benq and I get 60fps easily on medium settings
The croation fricks actually optimised their game huge
screens or it didnt happen
It got stuck at a black screen for like 2 mins but eventually booted to the main menu
game runs great
yeah and im sure your uncle works and croteam and tipped you off to the demo
put up or stfu
>22 GB demo
demo's pretty beefy anon, i'd say it justifies the size.
>a demo
>in current year + 7
Why?
Because nature is healing.
1 has some utter bullshit puzzles here and there but 2 is close to perfect
Was going to post La Mulana but guess I'll shill I wanna Lockpick instead, fantastic too.
Rome world... HOME
Rome/ Greece>Egypt>Europe
Egypt is good but only night levels
Obra dinn is one of my favorite ones
anyone played picrel during the open playtest? game ran like dogshit for me, but it was actually a lot of fun
Yea not sure how I feel about dailies and such in a puzzle game but had quite a bit of fun too. The movement / flying around was pretty alright and a good mix of puzzles. Maze section in pyramid maybe went on for bit too long as well but if they fix up the performance looking forward to it.
any talos 2 screens yet? hows the graphics options looking? guessing it's nowhere as good as talos 1
GUYS I'M STUCK I DON"T KNOW WHAT TO DO
DISHONEST GAME DESIGN
For a moment there I thought those statues had their dicks peeking out under the skirt.
As for graphics options yeah, menu is soulless now.
getting around 70 fps on a 3070ti at 1440p with mixture of high and medium settings
Has DLSS & HDR support, HDR is bugged out for me though, pic rel is literally how it looks on my screen, with that weird banding around the logo etc
Had same kind of shit with AC6's HDR too, there was some dll fix for that though, hopefully croteam can sort this for release
So why do Croteam games look that way? They are instantly recognizable from the engine. I always feel like it's the temperature of light they use for global illumination or something, but I don't really know.
Talos 2's UE5 slop so it won't look as distinct
yeah it feels very similar to Talos one
Real life scanned assets, I'd say.
Perfect!
Obra Dinn
Braid
Portal
Catherine
Hotline Miami 1 (yes its a puzzle game)
Opus Magnum
I love Hotline Miami but how the frick is it a puzzle game?
Not that agree that Hotline Miami is a puzzle game but he's probably referring to the concept of the "combat puzzle" where you have to find the optimal solution and path to killing enemies as efficiently as possible instead of just killing indiscriminately. The term was also used a lot of Doom Eternal. I.e. first prioritize killing this support guy with this specific weapon first, then prioritize killing this heavy guy with this specific weapon next.
I think I kind of get what you’re saying.
But I feel like it doesn’t apply that much too Hotline Miami, maybe Into the Breach or, if you’ve played it, Advance Wars dark ruin.
The first game is laid out to punish you for trying to play it like a twitch shooter, so unless you're really coked up you have to plan out how you'll clear each room in advance, which enemies will aggro, where they will come from, how they are equipped etc, basically like a puzzle game. That's my take anyway.
>That's my take anyway
Take worthy of homosexual video essay, to be honest.
Can of Wormholes
Any recommendations for games like Sanitarium?
From SS3 onward they always were a mix of three things to me:
>extremely obvious building block-esque usage of bought/photoscanned assets
>somewhat amateurish self-made stuff that screams "will do its job"
>"raw", clean graphics, as in no excessive use of filters, post processing effects, etc. unless it's absolutely necessary
And yet it looks great
Are there any "immersive sim" puzzle games or ones with a lot of puzzles?
In fact, there is something for you. Try Ctrl Alt Ego.
took me a while to get the color prism RGB thing in Talos 2
I'm not liking the UE5 nanite they're using, going 10 meters away from something turns it into a melted blob, and then running back up to it you can see the details slowly fade back in, ew
That's with all the settings cranked up too
>GTX 1080
>TSR
>Quality preset
>Shadows, GI n AA on medium, rest on high
Still kickin
Will the devs show up in Talos 2 as an easter egg like they always do?
If not, we know it's garbage.
I want another big wig behind a desk muttering money easter egg like in Talos 1
I was creeped out.
That was Fork Parker wasn't it? That was some Devolver social media thing back then. Not even sure if he is still around or was even a real person.
Yep, Fork Parker, Devolver's attempt at memetic faux-punk aesthetic by skewering the suits that they themselves still are. It wasn't bad, but kinda cringe.
He was in SS4
Wouldnt surprise me if they stick him in Talos 2 somewhere
I can't believe a game development studio looks like this in 2023.
Notice anything about Croteam anon?
where the diversity?
anyone know if this serves any purpose?
To look cool
Portal 2. I know these days it's probably considered very reddit with the heckin lemons and cakes etc. but I'm not even gonna pretend that I'm too cool for that shit. Also braid. It brings me pleasant memories. Great indie games were still a bit of a curiosity for me back then.
True. All the portal clones lack one very important thing — cool gimmick. I mean, in portal you have fricking portals, you can have fun in empty room with the portal gun. Other first person puzzlers usually have nothing to compare, and they are gloryfied switch puzzles.
The music in Talos 2 is great. Oh baby. I also had no idea that Bethesda-esque conversations were a thing, granted I've avoided trailers.
>Bethesda like conversations
I'm starting to lessen my excitement
i still need to play the DLC for this
already bought 2, first time I've preordered a game in probably 10 years
Why are all puzzle games just
Push blocks the game?
they're not tho???
I actually played this twice even though I knew all the solutions going in the second time just because I liked helping the dudes.
I wish there were more games like this, I know there's Heaven's Vault but the translation gameplay takes a backseat to the story
There's Sethian.
>demo has a "frick your problems, I'm outta here" ending
always love this shit
Mr. Driller.
Meteos, Talos, and Portal 1 get honorable mentions.
>Meteos
FUUUUCKKKKK I forgot about that game. The soundtrack being really fun.
>meteos
very good choice anon
Arguably more addicting than Tetris.
Yeah, this still needs some more weeks in the oven.
>other robots
I hate it
It was nice when it was just great looking locations and a disembodied god voice
Now we're gonna have to attempt to care about stupid robots
but there were other robots in the first game...
In terminals mostly disconnected from you. It was more looking through dead forums than direct conversation
Don't worry, you are sent to the island very soon, and it's as lonely as it gets.
finished the demo - skipped all the dialog and story-related stuff for now until the actual game releases so I'm not gonna comment on those
pro:
>runs surprisingly well and overall doesn't look too bad even on medium
>still feels like Talos and a Croteam game, including being able to go wherever you fricking want, including out of bounds for some game- and puzzle-breaking shenanigans
>all the fauna here and there like frogs jumping out of the water and across the road
>top tier music as usual
>exploration and secrets; however....
con:
>...the areas are way too fricking big and convoluted for no reason to the point where they saw the need to add a fricking Skyrim compass (that you can thankfully disable) - yes, 1 also had tons of walking around but not THAT much
>not really a fan of that Nanite stuff (I'd go so far and say that the parallax mapping on the Egypt assets in 1 looked more appealing than the actual geometry in 2) and some effects like mist above the water looked kinda ugly
>you still are using your makeshift Vive-HMD/tracker monstrosity for your mocap, aren't you?
>stuff like resetting and "dying" feel less elegant
>tons of small issues that'll probably be fixed until release like
7/10
too much water
Can you still sprint at Mach 2 speeds? The big areas were fine because you could zoom around.
Yeah but the areas are now even bigger.
"Finished" the demo, Liked the bait and switch they did throwing you past puzzles of Talos 1 in the prologue only to completely change genres and play like an adventure game with dialogue choices and a goofy ass bethesda NPC talk cam
Had to use a skip though so I really didn't finish it.
If any anon figures out the solution to puzzle 6 or 2-1 please enlighten me because I got stumped for around 20 minutes before giving up.
What's the best version of Myst?
the remake that came out in 2021 is perfectly faithful to the original
>sequel is character driven story instead of lonely exploration and introspection
What are your thoughts on this?
I'm both worried and intrigued
Road to Gehenna was the first turn in that direction, and I think they handled it well. I'm excited that they're trying something else besides just making a new level pack for Talos Principle. Hopefully it pays off.
So far I'd say it's going well, the voice acting minus Prometheus was pretty good, dialogue has enough charm and the animations are kind of janky but because they're robots it works surprisingly well. And still at least in the demo after the New Jerusalem introduction they throw you straight into a puzzle hub alone with the occasional exposition so it's pretty similar to Talos 1 in that regard, minus Elohim.
Art direction is pretty nice too.
I like that biblical angel look
My favourite thing about Talos was the biblical theming and ancient environments. I just hope 2 delivers on that.
> biblical theming
Well, you live in New Jerusalem
> ancient environments.
No more, it seems. Actual game have modern architecture.
And speaking of modern architacture, now I want new Serious Sam across multitude of planets, but not like in 2, I want alien locales similar to those environments.
Another example
Kinda, gehena gave me different vibes and still felt very much like the base game in its atmosphere
2 looks very different from trailers
I don't like it. It's a logical progression of the story, but a major part of what I enjoyed about the first game was being the only person in the entire world.
Hate it
Might not buy it now
Who said it was a character driven story?
The writers and devs
Honestly couldn't give a single frick as long as the puzzles are good and you still need to think outside of the box for stars and secrets.
It's not like I was reading all that babys first ghost in the machine bullshit in the first game anyway.
Literally doesn't mean anything.
You reading shit in the first game and listening to the audio logs and "god" talking to you can be considered the same.
But if they force you to read babbies first I, Robot the game's gonna massively suffer
>reading text and listening to God is the same thing
No, no it's not. It's a very different approach to story telling and tone, and the writers are open about that. They wanted to do something new with the sequel for better or worse.
Dunno, actual demo feels pretty lonely, when you get to the island (and that's good thing, of course)
AND DEMO DID EVOKE SENSE OF WONDER, YOU FRICK
I'm not liking the tone of Talos 2. Feels bland and soulless, and not evoking that deep sense of wonder Talos 1 had.
I'm hoping there are still moments of that within 2. I'm OK with it being different most of the time as long as they can still hit the same notes they did in 1 occasionally.
>Feels bland and soulless
>deep sense of wonder Talos 1 had
You cannot be serious.
You mean the Serious Sam 3 asset swap of the first game wasn't bland?
This. It's almost the definition of bland up to the very end.
Guys, frick you both. Realistic Serious assets are extremely soulful.
Anyone knows what to do here?
Where's that anon?
I found this which answer this question
wat game?
maybe this has something to do with that?
Tried it and it spawned what I assume are the stars of the sequel.
There's plaque with similar pattern, near the tower.
demo was really great, seems like it'll be another masterpiece.
W-what demo?
steam://install/2312690
Why is it hidden?
store page simply hasn't been updated yet, but the demo has been uploaded to the steam server.
It is hidden behind a puzzle on the games website
SOUL
where is this talos demo I don't see it on my steam
Got the star
Any good VR puzzle games?
Talos VR
I never played it so maybe I'll give it a try. I was hoping for things that are enhanced by being VR games instead of flat ports tho.
Well, there are such things, but haven't played them yet.
Also, play Outer Wilds VR mod, it's great.
>tfw i played this in flatspace before the VR mod and can never play Outer Wilds for the first time again
I actually did, but stopped before doing the DLC. Will have to start it.
It is a shame, would have been awesome. It really translates well.
Talos, portal, myst, Obduction
I regrettably got a PSVR but I enjoyed Statik
>use the command to install the demo
>steam account banned after playing for 10 minutes
I hope you guys didn't have a lot of games.
Some VR puzzles I'm aware of.
Fisherman's tale
Room VR
HELP YOURSELF
We are one
Baba
i am too stupid for this puzzle, please give me a hint or something. I know you access this one by falling from the cliff above but I can't seem to do anything.
No, it's teleport tutorial puzzle. Go to grates, look at blue thing and press "use".
Then I broke the puzzle, since the teleporter doesn't work. Shit, I'll try to go to the first area and come back since reloading checkpoint didn't let me interact with it.
Dunno, your screenshot looks like default condition.
How much do you get to play in the demo?
The entire intro level plus four puzzles and some exploration in two worlds each, so between 30 to two hours content depending on how quick you go through it.
i LOVE PUZZLE GAMES!!!
Puyo Puyo Tetris
The two best puzzle games of all time in one with cute characters and art style.
Superliminal and Portal 1&2 are also great, but just not as infinitely repayable.
We shouldn't call tetris "puzzle", to be honest.
But speaking of tetris, try tetris effect, in VR, if you can.
Again, tetris isn't exactly puzzle, but tetris effect do feel like galaxy brain meme. You are ENLIGHTENED.
So there's 4 stars in total in the demo right?
Two on the woods area and two in the canyon area
any tunic enthusiasts beat it entirely blind? I went through it recently but I swear some of the puzzles for 100% (especially the final one) blew my mind even after I read the guide for them, genuinely never felt so stupid in my life
amazing game though either way, true ending was way too cute
I got the golden ending blind, was fricking great
I looked up stuff for the super secret arg thing
Phenomenal game
I enjoyed Anti-Chamber and Mirror's Edge
I think my IQ is lowering by drinking everyday.
I really enjoyed the Silent Hill 2 and 3 puzzles. Is there any other games that are heavier on the puzzles and are still horror games?
photo mode will be fricking exploitable
shit I just realized I've never touched the DLC, might check it out before the sequel
I never finished the talos principle. I love puzzles, but why did I drop it
Chants of Sennaar is pretty good
So finished the demo and it runs okay at the lowest settings on my Steam Deck. The game still looks beautiful and I enjoyed the areas and the music. The puzzles were easy but it was a nice warm up and the new puzzle mechanics are cool. Can't wait to explore the rest. Definitely getting it day one but I think I'll have to get myself a new pc first.
I like escape room games like the Cube Escape series