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Stephen's Sausage Roll remains one of the most influential puzzle games

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Re: Stephen's Sausage Roll remains one of the most influential puzzle games

#91

Post by ozonhulliet »

acbart wrote: post #67
Jtarii wrote: post #62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>All of the critically acclaimed puzzle games seem to be sokobans Wouldn't really agree considering: Antichamber, The Witness, Talos Principle, Manifold Garden, Portal, Zachtronics, Tunic, Blue Prince, Return of the Obra Dinn, Seance of Blake Manor, a bunch more I could list.

Tunic is such an incredible experience. If you ever enjoyed the original Zelda and its manual, you simply must play tunic. It captures something incredible. And it has some amazing twists.

But it's hardly what I would consider a puzzle game.

Re: Stephen's Sausage Roll remains one of the most influential puzzle games

#92

Post by Balinares »

VorpalWay wrote: post #44
Waterluvian wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

For me, Outer Wilds finally got the Myst feel right.

Interesting, I had passed it by when I heard it had a time limit and reset mechanic (not unlike Zelda Majora's Mask). I hated that mechanic in Majora's Mask (and I never finished that game), it made the game feel stressful to me. I prefer games where I can play slow and deliberate. If there is a time mechanic it should be turn based, not real time. (Or it should be a very short time based system such as "run across t…

I would normally agree with you about time pressure, but Outer Wilds worked for me even so. In Outer Wilds I found the time loop liberating.

By construction, nothing in the game is far away. You're only limited by how much you've figured out. And having the spark of understanding occur can take place at any time, including while you're away from the keyboard.

So it's mostly about following your curiosity wherever it leads you, and from there you keep digging all the way, safe in the knowledge that in 22 minutes at most any screwups will be rolled back. And then you can try again, or, better follow your curiosity somewhere else. There's no lack of things to figure out, and some of them are completely optional. But... Figure them out anyway, the reward is worthwhile.

"Thank you for remembering me."

Re: Stephen's Sausage Roll remains one of the most influential puzzle games

#93

Post by GuB-42 »

rjh29 wrote: post #39

All of the critically acclaimed puzzle games seem to be sokobans. I have no idea why sokoban is so popular; I find it very tedious to move blocks around manually, especially if I already know the solution and I'm just making it happen. For me games like Artisan of Glimmith, LOK Digital, Tiling Town and Lingo are the most fun, followed by deductive games like The Roottrees Are Dead and The Case of the Golden Idol.

That must be a specific niche. I enjoy puzzle games and the only sokoban game I can think of is Baba Is You. Though many games, including games that are not primarily puzzle games have a sokoban-like puzzle at some point.

The puzzle game that reaped all the rewards this year is Blue Prince, it has its sokoban moment, but as a whole it is definitely not a sokoban game.

Re: Stephen's Sausage Roll remains one of the most influential puzzle games

#94

Post by jcl »

jrz53 wrote: post #74
gowld wrote: post #28

Is this what Jonathan Blow is trying to copy with Sinking Star?

Not sure, but Sinking Star it is an (authorized) amalgamation of pre-existing sokoban games so there's some relation there. From this post by one of the original devs: https://bsky.app/profile/draknek.bsky.social/post/3m7qybidq7...

Perhaps a more direct relation: most of those preexisting games were made in puzzlescript, which (per the article) was also made by the author of Stephen’s Sausage Roll.

Re: Stephen's Sausage Roll remains one of the most influential puzzle games

#95

Post by loopmonster »

ozonhulliet wrote: post #91
acbart wrote: post #67

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Tunic is such an incredible experience. If you ever enjoyed the original Zelda and its manual, you simply must play tunic. It captures something incredible. And it has some amazing twists.

But it's hardly what I would consider a puzzle game.

You could consider it a jigsaw puzzle game.

Re: Stephen's Sausage Roll remains one of the most influential puzzle games

#96

Post by AndrewOMartin »

joshu wrote: post #89
npinsker wrote: post #2

Stephen's Sausage Roll is my favorite puzzle game. But more interestingly -- it's a near-universal opinion within puzzle communities that SSR is one of the all-time best. I've never heard of such a strong consensus in other subgenres of game. Unlike other consensus "bests", it's relatively unknown to the public (which is understandable for many reasons). It's very likely that if you're a puzzle game devotee, you will…

what are some other games that belong to this group?

I always felt Deadly Rooms of Death (my preferred version being the free "Architect's Edition", but all are good, and many have better QoL features) was one of the puzzle games which was essentially "discovered" rather than invented.

Simple turn-based eight-direction grid movement, where one of your adjacent squares contains your "sword" and you can rotate your sword around yourself one square per-turn. Kill (deterministic and 1hp) monsters by moving your sword on to all the monsters move after your move, and "complete" a room by killing all monsters.

There's quite an active community (at least there was when I was in to it) but I've rarely heard it mentioned outside of the community.

Edit: I'm happy to see some other references to DroD in this thread.

Re: Stephen's Sausage Roll remains one of the most influential puzzle games

#98

Post by jcl »

acbart wrote: post #68
kibibu wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No "The Witness"? Not incredibly challenging, but I very much enjoyed its blend of puzzling and aesthetic.

The witness was fine, but The Looker was much better.

I think The Looker might appeal both to those who loved The Witness and those who didn’t. Several laugh-out-loud moments, some fun puzzles of its own - a wonderfully silly send-up, and free, too.

https://store.steampowered.com/app/1985690/The_Looker/

Re: Stephen's Sausage Roll remains one of the most influential puzzle games

#99

Post by frgturpwd »

Jtarii wrote: post #62
rjh29 wrote: post #39

All of the critically acclaimed puzzle games seem to be sokobans. I have no idea why sokoban is so popular; I find it very tedious to move blocks around manually, especially if I already know the solution and I'm just making it happen. For me games like Artisan of Glimmith, LOK Digital, Tiling Town and Lingo are the most fun, followed by deductive games like The Roottrees Are Dead and The Case of the Golden Idol.

>All of the critically acclaimed puzzle games seem to be sokobans Wouldn't really agree considering: Antichamber, The Witness, Talos Principle, Manifold Garden, Portal, Zachtronics, Tunic, Blue Prince, Return of the Obra Dinn, Seance of Blake Manor, a bunch more I could list.

Exactly, I am quite surprised by this thread. I always thought sokobans were just one of the niches of puzzle games (one that I am not quite a fan of, to be honest... I find it just okay.)

Re: Stephen's Sausage Roll remains one of the most influential puzzle games

#100

Post by aniforprez »

airstrike wrote: post #60
npinsker wrote: post #2

Stephen's Sausage Roll is my favorite puzzle game. But more interestingly -- it's a near-universal opinion within puzzle communities that SSR is one of the all-time best. I've never heard of such a strong consensus in other subgenres of game. Unlike other consensus "bests", it's relatively unknown to the public (which is understandable for many reasons). It's very likely that if you're a puzzle game devotee, you will…

I'll take Portal over it any day of the week

Portal is incredibly basic in its puzzles. There's barely any challenge even in the second game. Stephen's Sausage Rolls pushes its basic mechanics to the absolute limits and made me think significantly harder than Portal ever did. Not that Portal is a bad game mind you but it's not very deep as a puzzle game
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