Once again, the puzzle genre is rather dried up this year, and I’m afraid one day this category may disappear. Everyone is so worried about the next action game that people don’t want to step back and relax and work their brains.
Tetris 99
While we’ve played Tetris dozens of times over before, Tetris 99 brings people together in an online world and feels exciting and fresh. While there were other great puzzle games this year, and you could argue that Tetris isn’t unique, it’s a timeless classic and when to put together with new ideas can become one of the most addictive puzzle games ever like it was on the original GameBoy decades prior.
The puzzle genre is always hit or miss every year. There’s never a slew of AAA puzzle titles in the works, so what we usually get are surprise indie games that usually make a big splash and sell fairly well. 2017 was not that year, but it wasn’t completely empty.
Tetris Effect
Tetris may seem like a weird choice for the best puzzle game, but when was the last time you played an amazing Tetris iteration? How about in VR? Tetris Effect is by far the best version in years and it doesn’t try to add a ton of features or modes, just quality over quantity and you can’t be mad at that.
I love Super Monkey Ball. I remember playing this back on the PS2 and having a blast being OCD about collecting every banana in every stage. The GameBoy Advance version was probably my favorite of them all, but when I found out there was one for Vita I was quite intrigued.
Sadly, the fun didn’t last long. The game, for starters, hasn’t evolved one bit with the same tiled textured levels and blurry backgrounds. While the game looks decent on Vita it looks quite boring and bland. Outside of that, the controls feel somewhat off and the gyroscope and thumbstick controls just don’t feel right. Even the D-Pad controls on Super Monkey Ball Jr. worked well on a 16-bit handheld system, what happened? When using the thumbstick the levels move around so fast and is so jumpy it was nauseating just getting through a level. On top of that, the levels may seem challenging, but they just aren’t that well designed. It almost feels as if they were randomly generated and slapped into the game. You get 60 seconds to complete each level and get higher scores by collecting all the bananas or you can be brave and find a shortcut on some levels and jump down to the goal.
On top of all this, the mini-games are bland and boring and make no sense, and then the course editor doesn’t actually let you save courses and create your own from scratch so it feels pointless. Multiplayer is fun as always, but playing by yourself should always be enjoyable. I’m not sure if I’m just burnt out on SMB’s overall design that has stayed the same for nearly 2 decades or this is just a not-so-great version.
Banana Splitz could have been a definitive version of the series culminating nearly 2 decades of SMB into one fantastic game or rebooting the series into something different. The game is somewhat enjoyable, but it always feels like something is missing or wrong with the game. The series is really stale at this point and unless something drastically changes I won’t be rolling around Sega’s classic series again.
The puzzle genre is always hit or miss every year. There’s never a slew of AAA puzzle titles in the works, so what we usually get are surprise indie games that usually make a big splash and sell fairly well. 2017 was not that year, but it wasn’t completely empty.
Puyo Puyo Tetris
It doesn’t surprise me that the best puzzle game this year is on the Switch, it’s the perfect console for this type of game. With the mixing of Puyo Puyo and Tetris, it was a match made in heaven. I keep going back to this game and it never gets old
Monument Valley is one of the most memorable mobile games I have ever played. The game helped show that mobile games have a place with many of the great console games. It was smart, beautiful, unique, and a blast to play. It felt like a mix between echochrome’s (PSP) gameplay and Journey’s (PS3) art style.
With Monument Valley 2, I got really excited to play this. I expected more and new at the same time. That’s not entirely what we got. We just got new really. MV2 is an extremely short game and not very challenging. The MC Escher-style puzzles were a breeze to get through, which is a shame, as the first game had a few head-scratchers. Using various switches, you push, pull, spin, and align the various platforms through optical illusions to get the character to the door. At the end of each stage, the player can swipe their finger around to create a star that goes into the heavens, the meaning of this is unknown.
In the first game, we understood it was a journey, but this time around all I know is the character is a mother who is seeing her child off for her adventure and they reunite, that’s it. I like subtle stories, but this one was too subtle. At least a few new elements are thrown in such as controlling two characters at once, which creates a tad bit more of a challenge.
The game still looks amazing with gorgeous art direction, music, and heartwarming colors. It’s just a shame it’s in such a short package with no challenge. I still recommend playing this game, but I sure did want many more puzzles than the dozen we got.
Lara Croft has made a huge comeback thanks to 2013’sTomb Raider reboot. With her spin-off top-down series, Lara was bound to find her way onto the mobile market. Feeding off the success of Hitman GO, Square Enix takes another popular franchise and ups the ante on the GO series. With fantastically designed puzzles, great graphics, and easy controls, Lara Croft GO is the best mobile game released this year.
If you played Hitman GO you will be in familiar territory. The levels are comprised of squares that Lara moves along, these squares have dots on them so you know which ones you can land on. There are various puzzles that will make you really think before advancing to the next level. From pulling switches, avoiding enemies, killing enemies, moving platforms, moving stone pillars, and various other gameplay tidbits. It’s not just as easy as pulling this switch over here and that switch and be done. Enemies play a huge role in this game and movement is key here. Every time Lara moves a space so does an enemy. You must line up your moves to avoid the enemy or go around them. The puzzles are brilliantly laid out here and will constantly keep you in check.
The game also felt progressively balanced in difficulty. I started off clearing levels quickly and then slowly had to start thinking. Once I thought I had mastered certain gameplay elements another was thrown at me and made me think all over again. I can’t stress enough how well these puzzles are designed; they feel like they were made with care and delicate thought in each and every square. In between solving puzzles there are hidden vases throughout the level that hold gems that will unlock outfits for Lara if all are found in the level.
The game is also quite a decent length. It took me a good two weeks to finish the game and there is replay value here. Throughout the whole game, I never felt like it was impossible or too hard. It was always something that stared me right in the face and when I figured out the puzzles slowly I had a lot of “Aha!” moments which are so satisfying. Some puzzles I really had to work on and some were quite easy, but the easy ones in-between keep it from getting too frustrating.
The graphics in Lara Croft GO are beautiful papercraft models with great lighting effects and high-quality textures. This is a high-end mobile game at its finest and I firmly believe every Tomb Raider or puzzle fan must own this. I hope to see more games in the GO series as they are addictive and so wonderfully crafted. This is a hidden gem and an oasis among awful and ugly free-to-play games.
The puzzler genre is always overlooked and seen as geeky or boring. Puzzle games have proven to be some of the most memorable such as Portal and Professor Layton. Puzzle games can bring out the more intellectual side of us and can almost be therapeutic and relaxing.
I could get a lot of backlash for this but Monument Valley was one of the most enchanting puzzle games I have ever played. Yes it was extremely short, but it’s a short and sweet memory that I will never forget. It feels like Journey meets Echochrome in this gorgeous game that overloads the senses and puts a smile on your face. There are very few games out there like that (in fact the last one was Journey).
Being on a strange alien planet, you are tasked with the mission of using a device called The Swapper to escape, you must free yourself from this foreign alien race. The problem is, these aliens aren’t alive, they are a gathered mass conscious. The space station you are on is home to research and experimentation on these beings as well as The Swapper. As the story goes on you find out who’s responsible for The Swapper and why everyone died. The game has an eerie atmosphere with mind-bending puzzles.
The main mechanic of this device is being able to clone yourself. You can make up to four copies, and these are used to solve intriguing puzzles. Holding down the right mouse button will show a red outline of your clone so you know where you’re going to place it. The left mouse button lets you transport your soul into that clone allowing you to control it. It’s not always as easy as that. Colored lights play a big role in the game. Blue allows you to teleport but you can’t place clones, red is the opposite. Purple doesn’t allow you to do either. Sometimes lights are blocking buttons, paths, and most importantly the orbs you need to collect to make it through the space station. There are 124 orbs in the whole game and about 30 puzzles. Each puzzle is completely different, but later in the game, one other major element gets introduced.
That element is gravity, and with it being introduced so late in the game, it actually extends the longevity of the game. Instead of getting bored early on, you have to now use gravity which makes the puzzles that much harder. Walking upside down to place an upside-down clone on a button, only to teleport to it, place another clone, then find out how to get yourself right side up without dropping all the clones. The tricky thing is that all the clones will follow you. Movement plays a big puzzle-solving role as well. The Swapper is a very innovative game and one of the most original since Portal.
The story elements are told through some voice work, but it’s only from one woman. She follows you throughout the ship and later tells you how to get out. The rest is told through logs that you find throughout your journey. The atmosphere is very eerie with dark visuals and the feeling of being alone and scared. The only issues lie in the fact that some puzzles are just way too hard to figure out. They are very unbalanced ranging from really easy to suddenly super hard. I had to use a video walkthrough to solve some of them, and they were so complicated, that I never would have figured them out on my own. That’s the biggest problem with all puzzle games, you have to have balance. There are some puzzles where the solution is right in front of your face, but others not so much.
There’s also very little replay value, you need to complete all the puzzles to finish the game, and there are no time trials or anything like that. Once you finish it you’re pretty much done and will never come back. The story is also a bit flat towards the end, you never really find out what these aliens are and what they want. What’s here is fun and very original, but it needs a bit more to stand up to puzzle games like Portal.
A great puzzle game must be innovative in some shape or form and the puzzles must be able to be solved logically. Sometimes a good story is thrown in, but puzzles aren’t known for those. There weren’t many great puzzle games this year, and most of them are indie. These were the best this year.
Dokuro
Dokuro is a very underrated game. Most puzzle games this year were sequels and felt pretty much the same. Dokuro has a wonderful art style and has some great mechanics that usually aren’t explored in puzzle games. Using chalk for a game mechanic is a lot of fun and should be explored more. What makes it the best this year is the charm and emotions put behind the game. This field usually isn’t explored in puzzle games either.
Scribblenauts is one of those games that are just fun no matter what age you are. Solving puzzles by using your imagination just spells fun for anyone. Unlimited tries to throw in an open world feel, which doesn’t feel so open, and has almost every item you can imagine in there. The problem with Unlimited is that it is literally unchanged with no new features and that is a huge letdown. Still worth a playthrough though.
There is a bit of a story with Maxwell and his sister who have parents that have a magic journal and pen. You can create anything with this, but one day Max uses it for bad on an old man. He puts a curse on his sister to turn her to stone unless he does good for people and collects Starites to free her. It’s a bit touching at the end and pretty cute, but nothing that will wow you. The story is fine and works for the game. Once you are set free you use your special vision to find people at each level who need help. They will appear gold, and the main puzzles will have blue stars above them.
The people outside the main puzzles just require items to solve their dilemmas. You will read your clue at the bottom of the screen and try to solve it. Most logical things work like a ghost that doesn’t feel scary enough. Click on him and write in the adjective box “scary” and you solve the puzzles. Seems pretty simple, but there’s such a variety (over 100 in all) that it is just plain fun. I spent 2-3 hours in one sitting just flying through the puzzles, but then you get the snafus that kind of ruins it all. Some puzzles won’t accept logical solutions or you get a bad hint. The secondary puzzles don’t get additional hints like the main puzzles. The best thing is to get other people to help you who have a fresh thought process on it.
Overthinking, puzzles will probably make you the most frustrated in the game so it is a good idea to come back. Most main puzzles are pretty wacky and fairly simple and easy. For example, one area has you making dishes for certain people. A gamer comes in and wants pizza so you add three ingredients. Easy. Another comes in and wants to eat a phoenix…pretty weird, but ok. Add feathers, a beak, and wings and you’re done. The last one wanted to eat a motorcycle so I added a tire, gas tank, and engine. Very strange, but very simple, but it was fun coming up with all this stuff. There are a few that are challenging that requires some minor platforming and timing, but there weren’t many. You can finish the story in just a few hours, but getting 100% is fun.
Scribblenauts still has colorful graphics with paper cutout style visuals and it looks nice. The physics have been improved, but overall the game is just pure fun. Sure it may be really easy, but there are those one puzzles where you just won’t get it or won’t take logical solutions. The biggest issue is that there is literally nothing unchanged from past games. The UI may have changed for PC, but that’s about it. I wanted to see some mini-games or an actual adventure where you have to think about objects to get you from one end of the level to the next using objects. What’s here is fun, but maybe not for $30.
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