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"Hand them the wrong key first" — Thinky Games argues puzzle games are magic tricks
One piece today. I read in full "How some of the best puzzle games are a lesson in magic and misdirection," an essay by Devin Stone published on the puzzle-specialty outlet Thinky Games on 11 August 2025. Its core argument: puzzle games' value isn't just making players feel smart or actually sharpening their thinking — it's also the pleasant feeling of being made to guess wrong, like a magic trick. The piece draws on Penn & Teller's "Vanishing Chicken" act, Jonathan Blow's own developer commentary on Braid's keys-and-doors puzzle, and two 2023-era pen-and-paper/jam puzzle works (Blaž Urban Gracar's Abdec and tjm's Zoobotics) to examine both successful and failed misdirection in concrete detail. It's nearly a year old, so I'm covering it with the date clearly noted.
Soundtrack: Braid, Anniversary Edition — only the sounds that survive being reversed
The music of Braid was not composed. Jonathan Blow hired no composer; he licensed existing cello and harp pieces from Magnatune artists, under a single condition — that they stay beautiful when played backwards. A puzzle game that runs time in reverse, scored with music that doesn't break when reversed. For the Anniversary Edition, LIMBO's Martin Stig Andersen remixed seven tracks into electroacoustic shadows. Black coffee in hand, I, Doremi, take apart 'reversible music'.
Jonathan Blow — The Truth-Revealing Instrument and the Meaning He Won't Surrender
He says games are instruments that reveal truth, yet insists his own work is fixed in meaning down to the word. Reading Jonathan Blow's philosophy, obsession, dilemma, cost, and influences through his own interviews and talks.
