4 ms·

Sokoban is at the spritual center of a relatively new (or newly invigorated) and pretty hardcore subgenre of puzzle games. Who knew there could be so many inter

by tobr 7y ago

Sokoban is at the spritual center of a relatively new (or newly invigorated) and pretty hardcore subgenre of puzzle games. Who knew there could be so many interesting ways to push blocks around in a grid? Some good ones are Heroes of Sokoban I, II and III[1][2][3], A Good Snowman Is Hard To Build[4], Stephen's Sausage Roll[5], Ferdy the Cat[6], Kine[7], Snakebird[8] and Baba is You[9]. Each and every one of these games have undo. That's critical for this type of game. Forcing the player to restart because of a single mistake is about the least interesting way to make a puzzle game more difficult. 1: https://sites.math.washington.edu/~ostroff/puzzles/Heroes_of_Sokoban.html https://sites.math.washington.edu/~ostroff/puzzles/Heroes_of... 2: https://sites.math.washington.edu/~ostroff/puzzles/Heroes_of_Sokoban_II_Monsters.html https://sites.math.washington.edu/~ostroff/puzzles/Heroes_of... 3: https://sites.math.washington.edu/~ostroff/puzzles/Heroes_of_Sokoban_III_The_Bard_and_The_Druid.html https://sites.math.washington.edu/~ostroff/puzzles/Heroes_of... 4: https://agoodsnowman.com https://agoodsnowman.com 5: https://www.stephenssausageroll.com https://www.stephenssausageroll.com 6: https://ferdythecat.com https://ferdythecat.com 7: https://www.kinegame.com https://www.kinegame.com 8: https://noumenongames.itch.io/snakebird https://noumenongames.itch.io/snakebird 9: https://www.hempuli.com/baba/ https://www.hempuli.com/baba/

juped 7y ago
Strong recommendation for Baba Is You, probably the best puzzle game I've played in a long while. I won't say more since it's best played blind.
- BiteCode_dev 7y ago
  Seconded. Half of the pleasure of "baba is you" is to discover it. The game assumes this perfectly, and is actually structured to make that discovery part of the gameplay: it's incremental, pleasant, and it surprises you in good ways. I sometime even laugh at the way the game designer played with me. With one specific block present or missing. With one rule you didn't know about, or didn't think about that way. It's communicating playfulness without a having to say a word. This game is a beautiful thing.
glaberficken 7y ago
Also, in the vein of "Stephens Sausage Roll" check out "Pipe Push Paradise" http://pipepushparadise.com http://pipepushparadise.com
rob74 7y ago
Cool, I wasn't even aware that "A Good Snowman Is Hard To Build" is a Sokoban-style game when I bought the Humble Conquer Covid-19 Bundle (https://www.humblebundle.com/conquer-covid19-bundle https://www.humblebundle.com/conquer-covid19-bundle) a few hours ago (thanks for the opportunity to plug this, normally I don't do this kind of thing, but hey, it's for charity!) - guess this is one of the games I'll install first...
lgl 7y ago
For a kind of similar game but with a bit of a twist (not pushing blocks, but rolling them) I highly recommend Bloxorz [0] although I should warn everybody that it's highly addictive. 0 - https://www.miniclip.com/games/bloxorz/en/ https://www.miniclip.com/games/bloxorz/en/
wlkr 7y ago
I first encountered this back on the original GameBoy as Boxxle [0,1]. I recall finding it just as much of a challenge to create levels which worked! The music is just as good as I remember [2]. [0]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boxxle https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boxxle [1]: https://www.gameboyworks.com/1989/09/01/boxxle/ https://www.gameboyworks.com/1989/09/01/boxxle/ [2]: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qKkQxZKTLWQ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qKkQxZKTLWQ
joshvm 7y ago
This is pretty much the only good game on long haul flights, nowadays. It's the caveman version. You definitely don't get an undo, but you can cheat to get to higher levels as the passwords are only five characters long (and are dictionary words). Lots of carriers have it [1] Sometimes you can play Zuma, but that's hit/miss with latency and I can never get past Khufu's Revenge. Back in the long long ago, some airlines made a deal with Nintendo to put a SNES emulator in their entertainment system [2]. You could play Super Mario World, Zelda: A Link to the Past and other games. I only had the experience once, on a flight to Cape Town around 2002(?) and frankly I was a bit too young to appreciate what it was, but it somewhat spoiled me for inflight entertainment ever after. [1] https://entertainment.ba.com/en/games/details/17 https://entertainment.ba.com/en/games/details/17 [2] https://snescentral.com/article.php?id=1019 https://snescentral.com/article.php?id=1019
- misnome 7y ago
  Yes! I had this on a Virgin flight in 1999 as a kid. Was 10 years before I started travelling as an adult, and was sorely disappointed at how much _worse_ things had gotten

by tobr 7y ago

juped 7y ago

Strong recommendation for Baba Is You, probably the best puzzle game I've played in a long while. I won't say more since it's best played blind.

BiteCode_dev 7y ago
Seconded. Half of the pleasure of "baba is you" is to discover it. The game assumes this perfectly, and is actually structured to make that discovery part of the gameplay: it's incremental, pleasant, and it surprises you in good ways. I sometime even laugh at the way the game designer played with me. With one specific block present or missing. With one rule you didn't know about, or didn't think about that way. It's communicating playfulness without a having to say a word. This game is a beautiful thing.

glaberficken 7y ago

Also, in the vein of "Stephens Sausage Roll" check out "Pipe Push Paradise" http://pipepushparadise.com http://pipepushparadise.com

rob74 7y ago

Cool, I wasn't even aware that "A Good Snowman Is Hard To Build" is a Sokoban-style game when I bought the Humble Conquer Covid-19 Bundle (https://www.humblebundle.com/conquer-covid19-bundle https://www.humblebundle.com/conquer-covid19-bundle) a few hours ago (thanks for the opportunity to plug this, normally I don't do this kind of thing, but hey, it's for charity!) - guess this is one of the games I'll install first...

lgl 7y ago

For a kind of similar game but with a bit of a twist (not pushing blocks, but rolling them) I highly recommend Bloxorz [0] although I should warn everybody that it's highly addictive. 0 - https://www.miniclip.com/games/bloxorz/en/ https://www.miniclip.com/games/bloxorz/en/

wlkr 7y ago

I first encountered this back on the original GameBoy as Boxxle [0,1]. I recall finding it just as much of a challenge to create levels which worked! The music is just as good as I remember [2]. [0]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boxxle https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boxxle [1]: https://www.gameboyworks.com/1989/09/01/boxxle/ https://www.gameboyworks.com/1989/09/01/boxxle/ [2]: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qKkQxZKTLWQ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qKkQxZKTLWQ

joshvm 7y ago

This is pretty much the only good game on long haul flights, nowadays. It's the caveman version. You definitely don't get an undo, but you can cheat to get to higher levels as the passwords are only five characters long (and are dictionary words). Lots of carriers have it [1] Sometimes you can play Zuma, but that's hit/miss with latency and I can never get past Khufu's Revenge. Back in the long long ago, some airlines made a deal with Nintendo to put a SNES emulator in their entertainment system [2]. You could play Super Mario World, Zelda: A Link to the Past and other games. I only had the experience once, on a flight to Cape Town around 2002(?) and frankly I was a bit too young to appreciate what it was, but it somewhat spoiled me for inflight entertainment ever after. [1] https://entertainment.ba.com/en/games/details/17 https://entertainment.ba.com/en/games/details/17 [2] https://snescentral.com/article.php?id=1019 https://snescentral.com/article.php?id=1019

misnome 7y ago
Yes! I had this on a Virgin flight in 1999 as a kid. Was 10 years before I started travelling as an adult, and was sorely disappointed at how much _worse_ things had gotten