Panel-sorting system pays off as much with clever puzzles as it does with wonderful story-related revelations.Arguably the prettiest hand-drawn, hand-illustrated video game ever made.Gorogoa will flip its own pages back to the beginning when you finish. Should you rush along, feeling like a puzzle-solving genius, that's OK. Hardcore puzzle fans, meanwhile, should do their best to take a breath while coming up with Gorogoa's solutions and admire the gorgeous story. This game is admittedly dark and somber, but its saddest content is more of an issue of tone and confusion than outright inappropriate material, and its delightfully illustrated puzzles do not come more recommended for children. Just click to navigate.)ĭo you have kids? Buy and share Gorogoa as soon as you can. (He's also careful to reduce clutter and over-complication you won't find an "inventory" menu or any other outside system. Part of Gorogoa's brevity is that its puzzles rarely get in the way of appreciating Roberts' visually rich world. Otherwise, the game lays out plenty of clues and organic nudges to guide you through its ever-changing rules and systems. In my first run-through, I ran into two "pause and come back" stumper points in which I already knew the solution, but not Roberts' preferred clicking path. (Or is it just one character?)Īt its worst, Gorogoa expects you to click through certain puzzles in an exact order and not necessarily with rhyme or reason as to why. Still, the second (and even third) return to Gorogoa is nigh essential to understand its story and its characters. In the course of gameplay, Roberts does a remarkable job summoning older motifs and archetypes, like the chorus of a song, which works to ground the game's visual cornucopia. Gorogoa's "play it again" appeal helps here, as Roberts tells quite a story through his hundreds of unique panels. Roberts' use of hidden doodads can be slightly obnoxious if you're dead set on solving puzzles and not admiring beauty, as some of the click-to-zoom moments do nothing more than linger over an incredible piece of art. Gorogoa's rules of engagement change at a moment's notice, and entire, elaborate scenes can vanish with a single puzzle-solving click, leading you to an altogether new mechanic and new panel-shifting rules. Those are just a few of the awe-inspiring tricks that play out when clicking on panels, moving panels, combining panels, and more. Maybe you should arrange those panels to sit side-by-side in the two-by-two grid and see what happens. which line up perfectly with another panel's right edge. Still other times, you might notice that one panel's left edge is covered in symbols. Other times, you'll realize that some of the panels' contents line up perfectly, perhaps in the shape of a door or a window, and you can combine them to make a new path. Sometimes, you'll pull a frame or border off of one panel to reveal an entirely new landscape underneath it, which you can click through to expose new puzzles. Click-and-drag to drop that frame elsewhere on the grid to continue. And now, when you click on that original panel, you lift its outer edge. As it turns out, Gorogoa's playfield is a two-by-two grid of four panels. What makes Gorogoa different from something like Myst becomes apparent almost immediately, when the panel you've been clicking shifts to the top-left of the screen. Gorogoa's clever gameplay tricks and gorgeous, hand-drawn art will stay with you for a long time. Like those kinds of art, Roberts' creation stands out because it absolutely works as a "play it again" dive into spirituality, loss, and rebirth. At the end of six years of development, Roberts has produced a little over two hours of gameplay.īut that's like saying your favorite illustrated book is only 24 pages or your favorite children's movie is only 70 minutes. I describe this "ending" moment because it answers a critical concern about the puzzle game Gorogoa, which has been in development for an astonishing six years and was made almost entirely by one man, Jason Roberts. The game gave me some breathing room to do so, with a solemn song playing while credits rolled. I nearly doubled over in my chair, overwhelmed with the emotion I felt trying to make sense of what had transpired. Those seven all-caps letters exploded out of the emptiness I'd just exposed by solving the final puzzle. Platform: Windows PC (reviewed), Nintendo Switch, iOSĪfter my last click of the mouse, the screen went to black, with only the word "Gorogoa" flashing.
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