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3 reviews · 3 essays
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Ricochet Robots (1999) — Instead of Turn Order, a Number Said Out Loud
Alex Randolph's Ricochet Robots (1999) has no turn order. There is one board, and everyone solves it at the same time. Whoever finds a route says a number out loud, and the right to demonstrate goes to the lowest bid. The sliding movement ports to code almost too well; the one minute of sand does not. Reading the rulebook closely, here is what disappears and what survives — including the tie-breaking rule the publishers still have not agreed on.
Portal, The Board Game (2015) — When a Portal Stopped Being a Hole and Became "Adjacent"
Valve's Portal has a board game, released in 2015. Cardboard panels cannot hold a fall or carry momentum, so something had to go. Reading the rules closely shows exactly what went and what stayed: all that survived is the power to make two distant chambers adjacent. That alone still wrecks how you read a route. Which means anyone adding portals to a grid puzzle can test the idea with that single rule first. A translation for people who build digital puzzles.
When the Control Scheme Decides the Difficulty — From Grid Movement to Drag-and-Arrange
Sokoban's grid movement, The Witness's line, the dragging of Gorogoa and A Little to the Left, Return of the Obra Dinn's cursor, The Gardens Between's time, and Golf Peaks's cards. A maker's-eye survey of how a single input shapes a puzzle's difficulty, framed by discreteness, undo cost, and affordance.
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Evan's Remains
A 2D puzzle adventure built from single-screen block puzzles — platforms that vanish once you step off them, blocks that switch other blocks on and off — carrying the story of Dysis, a girl searching for a missing boy named Evan. A game by maitan69.
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A pattern-matching puzzle played inside a 3×3 lunchbox. You don't place the food directly: you play a small hand of operation cards that move, swap, copy or lift tiles, and you must spend every card exactly. 127 levels, wordless, with a short story about a cat mother and her kitten. By Afterburn, who also made Golf Peaks.
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An isometric puzzle game in which Felix, a reaper who never stops dancing, may only walk where there is shade. You flip the sun between two positions to reshape the shadows, push and pull props to cast new ones, and arrange each mortal's fatal accident. Made by Kong Orange, narrated by Patrick Stewart.
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