May Assassination #7 (Backlog / Snowball)
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One of the best puzzle games I've played in recent memory. What shines for me is the simplicity of it - every level consists of a 5x5 chess-like grid, and you receive anywhere from 1-5 pieces that need to be placed in order to power up or fuel up all your buildings on the map. And on this extremely basic premise, you have loads and loads of mechanical modifiers that ensure not only that each level is unique, but that each stretch of the game is unique as well.
Some stretches will have you dealing with spikes that come up and down on alternate turns, some will have you dealing with red crystals that prevent piece placement, and some will have you dealing with glitched patches that grow like a cancer, to name a few. The optional puzzles keep adding new mechanics, and the game is graceful enough to end before it becomes dull.
One of the things I loved about it is that, while some puzzles can be hard, there are just enough options that you can bruteforce the ones that stump you. Sure, it takes a bit of time and patience to do so, but it's better than getting stuck forever on a few levels like happened to me on Snakebird or Baba Is You.
All of that is wrapped in a game with a simplistic but confident art style that is charming and unique at the same time, some sound design that is arguably limited, but fits the atmosphere incredibly well, and some wordless environmental storytelling that works much better than it should.
How this game hasn't become a puzzling benchmark is beyond my understanding, but I hope my review at least help some people who are curious to finally give it a go!
I understand getting stuck forever on Baba Is You because that game is really bad at introducing its constant stream of new & unintuitive gimmicks, but Snakebird?? I beat Snakebird Complete and thought it did a really good job at both introducing gimmicks and building up the difficulty while still only requiring the knowledge that the game taught you in earlier levels.
Well I guess I just suck at it hahaha I first played Snakebird Primer and got stuck in 2 or 3 of the 30 or so levels. Then booted the main Snakebird and I think I got stuck at level one or two. And I’m fine with that, not everyone is good at puzzle games so I’m happy when I find one that I can actually beat and not be beaten by.
One thing to keep in mind is that Snakebird requires a lot of lateral thinking that doesn’t come easy for everyone. Doesn’t mean it’s poorly designed; also doesn’t mean it’s easy or forgiving. I just used it as an example of a puzzle game that crushed me
I dunno, I was under the impression that lateral thinking is about “thinking outside the box,” stuff like recognizing that the solution involves breaking implied-but-nonexistent rules. Meanwhile, by that metaphor, Snakebird tells you all of its rules upfront; it tells you the exact dimensions of the box and promises that all solutions are within said box, which is why I liked it so much: it doesn’t blindside you with seemingly-sudden rule-changes or other unintuitive stuff like Baba Is You; it provides challenging puzzles without relying on lateral thinking.
If anything, maybe the reason the game didn’t click with you is because of how heavily it relies on vertical thinking, on understanding the depth of the mechanics rather than figuring out new ones.
I have no confusion about Snakebird’s rules. I struggle with executing them properly. The universe of possible moves is so vast at each step, in particular when you start to control multiple birds. When you move your snakebird one tile, a lot of stuff happens (it can hook onto ledges, fall into holes, it can change its position, which may change the position of other snakebirds that are hanging to it) – my mind cannot compute all these possibilities and get to the answer, and because the possibilities are so vast, I can’t bruteforce it as well.
Some brains are really good at projecting the consequences of one move and visualize the game state a few steps ahead, which helps a lot in both Baba Is You and in Snakebird. Mine struggles at it, so if the solution is not well telegraphed, I’m usually stuck. It’s not about mechanics clarity, it’s about thinking many moves ahead and understanding how to achieve your goal