As I’ve mentioned multiple times in the past, finding topics is hard, but I’ve had some ideas on the burner for a while. One of them was to talk about Baba Is You, a push puzzle game that came out about two months ago. The reason I thought it would be interesting to talk about in a post is that it is a very interesting and clever game. But, I haven’t put any real time into it, it’s one of those games where it hasn’t clicked, so I have kind of given up on it. I may return to it in the future if I feel the itch, but for now it’s sitting tight on the backlog.
What made me decide to switch gears and do a general topic on puzzle games as a whole is that this week a new picross game, Picross S3, came out on Switch, which I instantly bought and I’ve already finished. As suggested by the name, this is the third game in a series of picross games on the Switch, and each one has more content than the previous one. Though it has gotten easier for me to do the puzzles with each installment, each of these games takes 40-50 hours to 100%, so it’s a hefty time investment.
So… why am I obsessed with these games when Baba Is You, an objectively better game in all respects, didn’t grab me?
I thought about it for a bit, and I came to a conclusion that was kind of surprising to me. As a genre of games, I’ve always loved puzzle games, it’s a staple of mine along with RPGs, platformers, rhythm games, and (some) shooters. But I didn’t fully realize until this week that I play puzzle games to zone out, to enter a zen of sorts. I get into a state of flow and if the puzzles maintain that state, I just keep going and going. If I get frustrated at all with puzzles that I’m trying to solve, I bounce off it right away because that’s just not what I’m looking for.
So games like picross and sudoku, which are puzzles of numbers and simple logic rules, fall into that camp of zen. There are definitely some that get frustrating because there are no obvious moves at a certain point, but filling in the grids is mostly relaxing and allows me to engage part of my brain while the rest engages in something else. Listening to a podcast or audiobook while doing picross or sudoku is perfect.
Baba Is You, on the other hand, gets really tough, really quick. It requires too much brain power and focus for me to enjoy for long stretches of time. I can appreciate it for what it is, but it relies too heavily on the shotgun approach and the cost of messing up can be high. I know that it’s a staple of a lot of puzzle games, but if my only path forward is to just guess and see what happens, that’s not something I’m going to enjoy.
There’s probably another reason why I don’t enjoy puzzle games that require a lot of thought, and that’s because I already put a lot of brain power into solving problems with my job. When I get home, my brain power is already drained, so it just wants to do something easy. There is an exception to this, namely the games made by Zachtronics. Their games, such as Space Chem, TIS-100, Opus Magnum, and Shenzhen I/O, appeal to me because they require the same kind of machine-building logic that I use in my normal work. It’s the same skills, but applied in a very different way. It’s the same reason why I also program in my spare time, but I focus on problems completely different from what I do at work. I do what I do because I enjoy doing it, but I want to use those skills in settings that don’t feel like work, so these puzzle games let me do that. Of course, I never play these after work, they are strictly a weekend sort of thing.
Another thing I find is that I really like puzzle elements in other games, whether it is an integral part of the gameplay itself or as a break in the normal gameplay to do something else. The latter tends to happen in action games, like God of War or Uncharted, where the player needs a breather between fights, so they put in a couple easy puzzles to break up the set pieces. The former usually comes in the form of strategy or tactics games.
I’m traditionally not much of a strategy game player, but I have enjoyed the small bites I’ve taken over the years, and it’s an area I want to get into more. Other friends I know love strategy games like Advance Wars, Valkyria Chronicles, Civilization, XCOM, etc., but I haven’t really played any of them. I’ve done a little Civilization V and I really liked playing Mario + Rabbids: Kingdom Battle last year, which is XCOM-like. My history tends to favor games that are not strategy at their core, but have some strategic elements within it, like Idle Champions of the Forgotten Realms, which I talked about at length earlier this year. It’s not much of a traditional game since you don’t do a whole lot in it, but strategy is a big element when it comes to creating the most optimal formation for the situation at hand. Finding those optimal moves is inherently pleasing to me, which is found in a lot of games, whether they are heavier on strategy or tactics.
I think at the end of the day, the thing that will turn me off of a puzzle game most is when I have to guess to advance. I like games where the puzzles are tough, but can be figured out through small, logical steps. Having a quick way to recover from mistakes is also a big plus, since starting an entire puzzle over after spending 15 minutes or more on it is super frustrating, but that is true of pretty much any game. I’m not the type of player who enjoys banging my head against a wall for hours to get over a challenge. I will leave that for others to enjoy and keep my zen experiences.