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I’ve been looking for Steam games that have got zero reviews to see whether or not they’re hidden gems that deserve a little bit of love and attention.

One game i think falls into this box is Trupki and it’s a slider and connect puzzle game with some really tricky level design because you’ve got limited moves to complete each level.

The idea is that you’re given this pattern or shape that you need to replicate that’s on the top half of the screen colored in by solving the puzzles that’s underneath, and I traditionally don’t really like slider puzzle games but trip key does things differently.

 

This slider puzzle works almost like a slot machine because most of the levels have to be solved by pushing things off of one Edge so that it appears on the other so as you push blocks and move them all up the top one will reappear at the bottom the left one. If you push them all left will appear at the right hand side of that row or column.

So you’re constantly about how things wrap around and fall outside the box, that’s all very well for some of the early levels but as you go through the 300 was in this game it then adds in additional mechanics such as square blocks that can’t be pushed of the edge.

You’ve got Arrow uh keys that will only move rows, or columns in the direction that the arrows pointed then you’ve got what i call like the Rotator block and it works a little bit like teacup rider where you can spin around. The axis of what a specific block on te hat row is whilst you move the whole row left or right or column up and down.

So it really plays with your perspective of how you can manipulate parts of the puzzle to redo the design. There’s also other things like you can put in like a twisty knob so that it rotates around everything like a giant circle around the edge of it, and the more of these that get put into the puzzle and the more they interact with each other.

The further you can get from the actual right answer by trying out lots of different Maneuvers as you try to recreate the shape above and that’s really the beauty of trip key. It’s really elegantly designed it’s got nice clean interface everything, just works my main problem with trip key is that it doesn’t have any kind of full screen mode or anything like that it pops up.

Blatantly built for mobile and touchscreen first because all of the UI and the instructions is like tap the screen and I’m like I’ve got a mouse. But outside of that it did just mean that the UI is quite small when you’ve got a whole screen for a PC to play with and it will only use a small Slither of the screen because it’s built in a mobile frame.

If you can Overlook that though trip key could well be a juicy little Puzzler for you to while away a couple of hours on trying to think outside of the box by wrapping yourself around it.

If you ever wondered what BuzzFeed quizzes would like as a video game then perhaps bright side riddles and puzzles wold be not too far short from the mark. In bright side riddles and puzzles you’re playing various different video quizzes that are narrated by a narrator that gets that they’re doing the same thing over again and leans into it for a joke, but presents you a one to four player multiple choice quiz format. Each video ranges from 8 to about 13 minute in length and can see it in the menu you and judge your time accordingly so that you can then see who scores the most points.

The quizzes range from a who is lying to who’s the person that’s most likely to survive
who’s most stupid
who’s the richest family
who’s the poorest family spotting the odd one out things like that.

They’re very simple to understand what it is that you’re meant to do, but sometimes some of the quiz questions are up for debate so some of them require like real world logic such. As which of these supposedly deadly animals would you rather sit in a room with and it would turn out that one of them actually isn’t bothered about humans and you just need to know that in order to get the right answers to survive. Other ones are things like observational quizzes because this is all in a video format, so it’ll be like someone stole your wedding ring and them you’ll be able to spot that one of the people that you’re being that you’re being that you’re accusing has gloves on so that’s kind of going to push you for your options there.

Other are a bit more subjective where someone’s put on supposed logic into a question to give them the answers. And so you’d kind of go okay, or it might be trying to spot something where the buildup to the question actually informs the answer. So an example of this would be you’re trapped inside an ice castle and you’ve got three deadly exits to het out of and one of them is a water ih like River full of piranhas. But then because you’re in an ice castle the outside will be icy too so you can just step on the ice and get out, and it’s those kind of things that trip you up and then you make the wrong answer and then you’re thinking: What uh and some things are a little bit confusing from that perspective.

It’s about paying attention visually and audibly to what the Preamble is quite often before you then make your choice. The choices get quicker and quicker in some quizzes um it’s very easy if you’ve plugged in your own controllers for each person to very quickly just press up down left or right todo their own thing. There are some questions, where actually choosing nothing is the right answer and that frows you off because you always feel like you’re being forced into a choice. And yeah it’s an interesting concept I think it leans into the fact that it repeats and recycles the same thing over an over again and the narrator kind of makes a joke of it, and when you see this on sale.

I actually think it’s a nice friendly silly bright and uh jovial quiz game to play. Just don’t expect too much replay-ability because the answers obviously will always stay the same.

Sometimes I call myself directionality challenge or directionality intelligent depending. On if I’m having a glass half empty or glass half full day and that’s because games occasionally come along that are really simple, but they totally defeat my brain they’re often spatial puzzles and this is kind of one. But it really highlighted my inability to do graphic designe the pain puzzle is all about trying to layer on different geometric colors and shapes in arranging them in a way.

So that they can match the pane of uh design that is underneath where it says level and then there’s little small hexagon there you’re layering from the 20 different shapes and colors that are available underneath onto the big hexagon Pane and what you need to try and understand in to emulate and replicate what’s been given to you is:

A- What order the colors and shapes need to be added on and then.
B- what orientation.

And I was fine with working out the colors and shapes and being able to flip Them around and so on so forth when it was three or four layers but towards the end of The 100 puzzle layouts it was starting to become a five six and seven layer puzzle an nothing fundamentally changed and quite often I could see where I needed to get to but my brain just could not cope with being able to select was going around and orientating them the right way and there was realy tiny nuances is where I’d bring something to a nearly done perspective and then be like.

Ah now I am stuck thankfully the controls are very simple to get to grasp with it’s literally just clicking with the mouse and deciding with the different icons which way you want to flip or rotate each layer around and you can click on the hexagon in the main again to take off layers too so it’s nice to kind of go back and forth and work out. What you’re doing the game also has a really generous hint system to the point where you can just hint your way through the entire game and get a 100% steam Achievement Award so clap clap clap if you’re going to do that.

But if you don’t use that hint system actually there’s a couple of hours of decent gameplay here as you slowly solve the different puzzles and feel good about yourself and hopefully much better. Than I did my only negative comment about the pain puzzle is this game separate out its levels into tow sets of 50 but it’s the same 20 shapes both times around. That are being used to create all of the different pains and I think this game wold have been better had have been different set of 20 shapes each of the 50 level splits, because what I found was that you start to see certain patterns of uh level designs popping up again and again and you start to hone in on.

Oh I’ve made what shape before I’ll pull that forward and do it again and actually it does lend you somewhere towards the right answer and so yeah. I Just think there would have been a little bit more variety had have used different shapes for the different levels but what’s here is great and for 220 I’m not complaining the pain puzzle is out now

Today we Would like to give our thoughts on a rather curious puzzle game called Mosa Lina.

Mosa Lina

At first glance Mosa Lina might look like your usual puzzle platformer. You are dropped into a single screen room. Your goal is to collect or destroy a bunch of fruit, and then make your way towards the exit – and to help out, you are have got some useful mechanics.
Like… a magic spell that makes platforms move, bunch of lumpy tentacles that you can spawn at will. So… drag this apple off screen with a tentacle.

And uh… oh. Can’t get back up.

Okay lemme try that again. Ah well like i said this is not your typical puzzle platformer. Because while the levels are set in stone, the mechanics are actually completely random.

This time we’ve got a butterfly that lets us teleport elsewhere, and then teleport back a few seconds later.

A rectangle where gravity is reversed. And the power to pin platforms.. permanently.

So this game is aggressively random- and that means there are no intended solutions to the puzzles on display. No obvious lock and key connections. Heck: no guarantee that you could actually finish the level with your current load-out.

But the upshot is that you get to be creative and crafty with your solution. You get to find completely unique ways to overcome the level at hand. Maybe shoot an apple out of the sky with a spear, and then use it as a makeshift platform before it plummets off screen. Freeze these spinning spikes in place to make a safe bridge. Jump off a cliff at just the right moment so you’ll teleport back to safety before hurtling to your death. This sort of emergent problem solving really reminds me of immersive sims. That’s genre, or perhaps a design sensibility, that came out of a specific lineage of old PC games like Ultima Underworld and System Shock.

Game Design

They were designed around the idea that you could use powers, tools, magic spell, interlocking systems and enemy Al to come up with totally unique solutions to problems. Resulting in clever stuff like using the wall-mounted mines in Deus Ex as impromptu stepping stones to scale up buildings. And in fact developer Stuffed Wombat actually calls Mosa Lina an immersive sim.
But also sees it as a sort of commentary or response to more modern takes on the genre like Deathloop and Dishonored. In those games, abilities can feel less like emergent problem-solving tools, and more like keys to open specific locks.

You get the super strength ability, and now you can go down the alleyway that’s been blocked by a heavy box. Mosa Lina pushes back against that rigid puzzle-piece mentality, and makes for a game where it’s entirely up to you to find the right solution. And it achieves this in a number of clever ways.

For one tools are just tools. The game is packed with clever, funny inventive and wired little power-ups that manipulate the world in interesting ways. But they’re not tied to any specific object or set-up. You just find uses for them or figure out interesting combinations.
Secondly the game is all about physics. Tentacles wobble pendulums swing tools can make platforms move l, float and drop.

Similar Games

Kerbal Space Program

Games like Kerbal Space Program and Tears of the Kingdom show that the second you add a robust physics to your game, the number of possible actions and options just balloons into infinity. And thirdly, Mosa Lina embraces randomness. If the developer doesn’t know what combination of tools you’ll have, there’s no way to desing a perfect solution. An if the level simply doesn’t work with your current set-up then you can just re-roll and try again with a new collection of mechanics. All of this lead to a game where I found myself creating clever and imaginative strategies over and over again.
Leading to slapstick failures and smart solutions and clutch, last-seconds saves. These are the sort of memorable and emergent stories that you might get one or two times when playing through a typical immersive sim-but hand them every few minutes when playing Mosa Lina this weekend. And it’s also just a really addictive roguelike-style game.

You know that feeling of wanting to play Slay the Spire or Binding of Isaac over and over again because who knows what awesome items and synergies you’ll get this run?
Well same goes for Mosa Lina in each run, the game gives you nine items from a pool of about 20, so you’ll need to play many times to see all of the items, and many, many more times to see how they stack and combine. The developer has already promised to add even more to the pool in future updates.

Off course

I wouldn’t recommend this game to just anyone. You need to be okay with confusion and chaos, and wonky physics and weirdo graphics. There’s no story or structure, so it can feel more like a weird experimental toy than a complete game.
And most importantly: judging by the comments on my videos about games like Tears of the kingdom, there’s definitely a large number of you who don’t want to futz about coming up with own solutions to puzzles.

So if you’re after something more traditional then- bonus recommendation check out Cocoon: a mind-bending puzzle adventure about worlds within worlds within worlds.
It’s an evocative sci-fi game where these coloured orbs aren’t just puzzle solving tools- but actually entire pocket universes that you can jump in and out of at will. It’s also basically the opposite of Mosa Lina.

Cocoon

Cocoon is an explicitly hand-crafted game where every puzzle and solution has gone through months of refinement and iteration to deliver players one, very specific logical conundrum to figure out. No randomness no physics weirdness… no player creativity. But you know what: that’s the great thing about game design. There’s no one perfect way to do anything. There are incredible experiences to be had in games where everything’s been designed by a master craftsperson, taking you on a super specific journey. And incredible experiences to be had in a game that uses randomness, physics and open-ended solutions to make you the master craftsperson. They joy of games is that there’s room for every tybe.

And if you’re a designer like Stuffed Wombat, if you don’t like what’s currently on offer, then make something different and show the world how things could be. Mosa Lina is on Steam for five bucks, with a free demo to check out.

Sudoku, how to play.

The object of the game is to corro fill in all the empty space with the correct numbers. The classic Sudoku game involves a grid of 81 squares the grid is divided into nine blocks. Each block contains nine squares each of the nine blocks has to contain all the numbers one through nine within its squares without any duplicates or omission, each vertical nine square column and each horizontal nine square row.

Must also contain all the numbers one through nine within its squares without any duplicate or omissions. You may only put one number in each square unless are notes in which case, you indicate that by making them smaller. Using logic reasoning and deduction you must figure out every empty square in the grid, so that all the rows columns and blocks all hold to the rules without conflicting each other.

Every Sudoku has exactly one correct solution, once you have filled in all the squares with the correct numbers you win.

We wanted to talk about a very interesting puzzle game we came across as of late. We are talking about:

Chants of Sennaar

this is a point and click adventure game about solving puzzles exploring locations, and talking to people but there is a catch -you do not speak the language. All off the text is written in some indistinguishable foreign language, which is made up of cryptic symbols and letters.

solution »

Did you ever wish there was a game especially designed for couples. You and your girlfriend or boyfriend could actually be having a great time while playing a two player game where you solve the challanges together.

Tick Tock – a game for two

Tick Tock is a game that is perfect for couples especially the long distance ones and also friends who like to play together. This game has cross play and you can play it on phones and tablets.

Player Communication
You exist in different times and must communicate and work together to solve the puzzles presented in the game. The communication is key because each player will see something different.

Online and offline Mode
You can get on Switch/Steam and mobile! You can play together with a mate while in the same room or in “online mode” by chatting on discord/a phone call. The game however, doesn’t necessarily need need internet connection, you just have to make sure you both select the right player number.

Heavenly Bodies

Heavenly Bodies is a physics game by 2 PointInteractive where your mission is to fix a defunct space station either solo, as a pair or as a team of clumsy defunct.

With no gravity and little to no-control over your own body your mission is to get things back in working order. The lack of gravity is the principal element you have to deal with during the entire game play.  Grabbing the operations manual at the start of each level details what needs to be done but things are always a bit more complicated than they seem – even when diagrams on the menu look straightforward.

With You

With you is a game especially designed for couples. It is designed in such a way that it necessitates you to be more collaborative with your mate during the game play. Everything must be done as a couple. The game creator aspires to get couple players to connect and better communicate their ideas via this game.

 

In a recent video in one of the New York Times social media accounts Tracy Bennet  the editor of the famous Wordle game, started answering a few questions from players of the game.

First question

I was crying the other day and started with teary and got it in 1, so solid advice tbh.

Tracy’s response: “Yeah I think the advices she’s referring to is that the first word that you think of  is how you feel and when sometimes you hit it on the first try, so its like a magical word. I love this story I’m gonna keep this one.”-she said after;

Second question

How does somebody become a digital puzzle editor?

Tracy’s response: “First of all just making puzzles. Then submitting them on various publications. Some will get accepted and some will get rejected. I also started in a publication… editing puzzles made by women and not binary constructors at Inkubator. And after a decade of doing that this job (refers to Wordle) became available at The Times. But even then it was kind of lucky that was in line to get a Game. And that is how I did it, I do not know how other people got their jobs(laughs). I think is just working in the field and pursuing your passions”.

Question 3

Aisle is my go-to word!!! eleminates/confirms half the vowels and S which almost always trips me up.

Tracy’s Response: “I think this is great. If you are gonna have that strategy where you use the same word every day that is a great start word and eventually A I S L E will be the word.

In this unique game you are an old man living by the sea in quiet solitude when an unexpected letter arrives to your home.

The Story

The mail brings concerning news with it, which makes you grabbing grabbing your walking stick immediately and this is how your journey begins.

The Landscape

You hike and trek through this quaint french countryside which presents some challenges as the hills and ridges are too daunting to hike for an old man.

But you gently push push and pull through the landscape like a  pottery master molding clay thus forming paths forward which bring you closer to your mysterious destination.

You will travel past sleepy villages and soaring cliffs when the sights spark something against your cowebbed mysteries unfolding a story of a long life marked by personal choices witu regrettabe consequences.

Old mans journey is a visual novel with light puzzle elements centered around the emotional and wordless story of chosing between love and personal passions and the ripples of effect that come as a result of those choices.

More than anything it makes you to reflect on your life and what truly keeps you anchored and happy.

This serene and poignant adventure is best enjoyed with a cup of chamomile tea the gentle floral notes are a perfect compliment to this calm and introspective inducing game.

• The game is around 8 bucks
• Game play is around 2 hours
• Available on Pc Switch Mobile Xbox and PS