I’m moving a little slow today, but I haven’t told Dwayne because he would absolutely tell me to sit my butt down. So, here I am with another piece because I have more games to get off my chest and writing makes me happy. This time, I’m reaching back to my interview with the Thinky Games crew and two games Joseph and Rachel both recommended to me while we spoke: Patrick’s Parabox and Leap Year. Since I cut the interview down for time, these two games in particular got left out.
Joseph’s recommendation- ‘Patrick’s parabox’
Joseph mentioned Patrick’s Parabox as an example of a “Sokoban game that isn’t trying to be difficult”. He described it as “What if you made a game that was almost like a museum of a system?”. And as I was writing down the name of the game, that description didn’t fully register with me. It wasn’t until I was typing up the interview that it hit me. I was puzzled. And then I downloaded the demo. I’ve never heard a more accurate description of a game in my life.
Patrcik’s Parabox is exactly that. The game presents its goal to you and then every single puzzle after that is essentially “now look at what we can do with just that one idea”. You’re pushing boxes to specific spots. Simple enough. But what if you could go inside of a box you were pushing to get to another box you have to push? What if you had to push a box to a spot, and then enter another box to complete the puzzle within?
It is every bit of incredible. Just the first nine puzzles of the game were enough for me to see exactly what this game was about. And the music is amazing. If you’re looking to get into Sokoban games, you for sure can’t go wrong with this.
rachel’s recommendation- ‘Leap year’
Rachel on the other hand, brought up a game that I’m 90 percent sure is going to drive me up a wall in the best ways. Leap Year is a “Metroidbrainia” that hates when you jump. That’s absolutely an oversimplification, but when you can get an achievement out the gate just by literally hitting the jump button and dying upon landing, what else can I think? Your objective is to collect the numbered flags throughout the levels, but the catch is that your standard jump will kill you.
In Rachel’s words: “It’s understanding that you can move around the world by moving a certain way”. The best thing about that is, she gave me absolutely no clue on how this was supposed to happen. In playing, I think I’ve discovered it, but I feel like there are other ways as well. It’s a short game, meant to go about 2 hours, but I can tell that there’s enough there to keep me thinking and that’s all I really want.
That and a little comedy. When you die, the music in the game comes to a halt and there’s just silence until you hit the space bar. The first death is made especially funny when this happens and you get an achievement that just says “?”. As if the game is asking you what the hell you’re doing. I can’t wait to beat this.
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