Puzzle games are a special breed. Rather than shoot, jump, strategise or manage your way out of situations, you apply some lateral thinking and hope nobody saw you google the answer. Summer Game Fest 22 promises a few interesting future releases for the genre. It’s not a comprehensive list, but here are a few puzzle games that stood out during the event.
A Little to the Left [Steam Link]
Some puzzle games seem intent on making you feel like you’ve inherited the Gordian knot (and no cocky Alexander to just cut it). But A Little To The Left is the opposite – a very zen puzzle game where you tidy a house. There are dozens of puzzles where you look for special arrangements and interesting combinations, taking your time to suss out the best flow. To add some spice, the household cat will mess with your arrangements.
The Entropy Centre [Steam Link]
The Entropy Centre takes after the Portal games. It’s in first-person and uses a special gun to manipulate the environment. But instead of portals, this particular gun reverses time. Figure your way through a maze of rooms by constructing, deconstructing and reversing objects, and figuring out the solution sequences. It looks fascinating and will appeal to all the Portal fans out there.
Birth [Steam Link]
Exploration and lateral puzzles meet cute hand-drawn visuals in this surreal puzzle game. Your character wants to make a companion creature, collecting parts from the town where they stay. Explore different locations and solve many divergent puzzles as you get closer to your goal. It seems a little creepy, but Birth looks very interesting and inviting.
The God Unit [Steam Link]
This game is also reminiscent of Portal in that it’s first-person. But The God Unit takes a different approach, emphasising physic-based puzzles. You can deploy different objects that change the physical nature of an area, such as creating gravity, removing mass or even bending time.
Tinykin [Steam Link]
I wonder if the title Tinykin is a subtle nod to Pikmin, the puzzle game that was all the rage on Nintendo’s Gamecube? It’s similar in concept: you gather and control dozens of tiny creatures, using their abilities to overcome obstacles in the game world. But this is more than a homage: the creatures and puzzles seem more complex, and the mix of 3D environments and 2D characters gives this a unique feel.
Railbound [Steam Link]
Some puzzle games take a simple concept and then elaborate it without going overboard. Railbound really feels like that type of experience: elegantly construct railways to connect different points and move the carts in sequence. With over 100 puzzles and very nice visual design, this looks like a sure bet.
Lab Rat [Steam Link]
Portal’s influence is also very obvious in Lab Rat, in that you are being tortured through puzzles by a snarky passive-aggressive AI. But there the similarity ends – Lab Rat is an isometric grid puzzle game where you move objects, though things start going weird when an accident happens and the later stages look anything but conventional.
