/v/ - Video Games

Crazy Machines

Build a contraption from limited tools to reach from A to B.

>The Witness

Every time I see this game brought up there's always someone who states that The Witness is pretentious. What makes it pretentious? I'm curious to give The Witness a shot since it's a PlayStation + game for March

>>16181917

I wouldn't describe the main game as pretentious, just the completionist puzzles. There are literally no instructions so you have to figure out everything yourself. Each area introduces a new mechanic and many areas use things you have to have learned elsewhere. There's no warning of when this happens. You'll just see a symbol that is unfamiliar and you have to wander around the island until you find the area that explains that symbol. It's a very solid game if you don't mind some difficult puzzles without the slightest hand holding.

The completionist challenges are absolutely pretentious. There's a time trial at the end with randomly generated puzzles and it's not what I look for in a puzzle game. The really dumb one is not exactly a puzzle. You're forced to watch a one hour video and have hold an input during the entire duration. Check it out on YouTube. It's like he was seeing what he could get away with publishing.

>>16181737

>The Room 1, 2 and 3

"Hey look there's a box with an esoteric lock you have to open" x5. Good timewasters but only good for one go.

>The House of Da Vinci

Similar to above but with more room work.

>Puzzle Quest

Tactical gem matching against AI opponents that can kick your ass but can always be overcome with a little xp farming, luck and/or loadout change, more to it than it first seems, learning spells and breaking mounts at the castle can make a huge difference and the plot can alter somewhat by taking certain routes during events.

Talos is decent, some of methods to get stars are bullshit but thankfully there's guides.

Also Jonathan Blow is a pretentious hack and World of Goo was a big disappointment due mostly to being the former type of puzzler with very limited replayability.

>>16184394

>get into the game thinking it's going to be a puzzler to solve and fuck around with

>get sent into a recursive debate on what really constitutes being a person

Not to say that "you really need a high IQ" to play that game, but it had some really intense views and themes about purpose and existence.

>>16184513

I was honestly too frustrated with the fact that I had to select from an array of prefabricated answers to that asshole's arguments (none of them being what I'd answer and eventually leading to me losing the argument since they're shit answers) to really appreciate the themes. But yeah

>>16184513

>>16184594

I do like the game but I agree the terminal stuff is turgid and unnecessary, if you don't pick a hardline stance and stick with it you're subject to a load of grey area morality bullshit chatter. I don't mind being a robot doing puzzles thanks, god doesn't really figure in weather or not I can get these laser lined up or not.

The DLC is even more pretentious as a gang of reddit shitposter bots yak on endlessly via the terminals about shit that doesn't matter while you free them.

Obligatory shout out to Zachtronics games, Spacechem and Opus Magnum are my favorites. They translate computer science topics into a drag-and-drop language which doesn't put off newcomers, and provides limitations unique to traditional languages. Haven't got around to Exapunks yet.

Stephen's Sausage Roll

I'm interested in this game, looks like a more advanced Sokoban game. Apparently there's more than meets the eye, and it does a lot to keep people interested.

Picross

It's a long-time favorite of mine, especially the Nintendo-produced ones. The picross e series on 3DS was great, as was Picross 3D Round 2. I hope Hal works on a Round 3 soon (after figuring out how to make it work without a resistive touchscreen)

I.Q.: Intelligent Qube

I revisited this yesterday, and it's still really good. Getting perfects within n turns with only a short time to figure it out, is really rewarding.

>>16181737

>The Talos Principle

>Just started this game and am not very far. The difficulty hasn't started to ramp up yet

I dropped the game with the time record/replay puzzles. In any game, those puzzles require a way of thinking my brain just can't handle. I liked it up to that point, though.

>>16185902

Wait nevermind found a crack lol.

>>16185530

>I agree the terminal stuff is turgid and unnecessary

Well, the good thing is it is unnecessary, aka optional, so you can just skip it and do the puzzles.

I don't see how the DLC is more pretentious. If anything, the base game is the more pretentious one because it wants to be taken more seriously, whereas the DLC is more humorous and the tone isn't as serious.

>>16185912

>>16185902

The Humble Bundle version is DRM free, too.

Point and click puzzle games can be fun. I liked the early Mystery Case Files games.

There was a SWF point and click series called Submachine which was amazing.

Toby the Secret Mine is like Limbo, except with more unpredictable deaths.

English Country Tune.

>>16185970

>wasn't impressed by the first few hidden stars

Just play the DLC directly if you crave the difficulty right away and don't have any patience.

>>16186384

I've already played the DLC, do people really consider that to be more difficult than the main game?

>>16186392

I think it is. Read other anons say so as well.

>(the purest genre of vidya)

No it's not. It's a genre where any mechanics are dragged in the opposite direction of where they should be, relating to your movement and interaction with the world. Instead they're typically walking sims with a larger amount of locked doors. Puzzle games can still be good, but a great many of them simply give you the barest, simplest mechanics in order for you to wander from stupid fucking puzzle interface to the next. Limbo and Inside are just platformers.

>>16181917

>>16182261

The Witness is pretentious from the audio logs you find throughout the game, not for any gameplay reason. There are also some videos in the game that are very preachy. The audio logs are about science vs. God and the relationship that humans have to both. A lot of the game is centered around reconciling faith with science, even the puzzles themselves could be seen as a metaphor for the relationship between God and science, with God as the starting circle and science being the path you move through, using logic and reason, to get to the end. The audio logs and videos arent even that bad, if a little naive, if you like philosophy, until the very end. The last few audio logs you find reject atheists as angry losers who "just hate god" and then go on to misunderstand where modern atheism comes from. Also one of the videos in particular is absolute garbage the one with the guy talking next to the plant. Actually there are a couple bad videos the lady talking and then the last one is like an hour long. So the Witness is pretentious because it wants to discuss philosophical topics in a mature unique way, but instead comes off as "look how deep I am, Im a feshman who just took philosophy 101, like question everything dude" tier.

Is Portal a puzzle game?

>>16195535

Portal is gay community

Is Tetris 99 a puzzle game