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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 fall in love with SSR; but at the same time, if you don't have experience with puzzle games, you'll very likely hate it.
As a result, I've always thought it's an interesting window into how we value "taste" and "mastery", how too much mastery can actually distance us from one another, and what meaning there is in designing games for an ideal world shaped around ourselves, versus the world we actually live in.
It's well-known that puzzle games sell badly on Steam, and I think part of that is that difficulty and struggle is an acquired taste. Most try to paper over that gap with nice soundtracks and graphics, "hooky" mechanics, and narrative. SSR is so interesting because it contrasts so violently: it's ascetic, has no obvious hook, and offers nothing but difficulty and struggle, and the best feeling in the world if you decide to push through it anyway.
Some of my favorites are puzzle games but I guess I’m not a member of the "community" (is there a message board?) and I’m surprised to hear there's any consensus on anything- my experience has been that most puzzle fans have a very specific subgenre they enjoy rather than enjoying "puzzle games" as a whole. I've had such little luck finding new games I enjoy that I don't pay any attention to puzzle game recommendations u less it reminds me of a specific game I already like. I've played several games in this genre (didn't know it had a name!) and they are very much not my thing.
It would surely sell more if people would actually explain what the game is, without using niche words like "sokoban". The article talks about how the trailer for it didn't really show anything about the game either, which arguably gets you into pretentious/artistic territory.
After reading the linked article, and the comments here I still have zero clue about the game. It's a puzzle game involving sausages and a large fork does nothing to describe what kind of puzzles they might be.
Stephen's Sausage Roll is great, but even among sokobanlikes, I'm loathe to call it the undisputed all-time best when it's up against Baba Is You.
I'll take Portal over it any day of the week
what are some other games that belong to this group?
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.
A good sokoban should not be busy-work. Well designed puzzles should be pithy and not require a lot of running around. The distance between discovering the solution and executing it should be very short.
This one is critically acclaimed and is not a sokoban: https://store.steampowered.com/app/2721890/oo/
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.
> I find it very tedious to move blocks around manually, especially if I already know the solution and I'm just making it happen
thinking about how calvin's dad would explain every video game is either sokoban, or chess
The Artisan of Glimmith is so good! Biggest surprise of the year for me so far.
My list of must play puzzle games is far too short: Portal, Portal 2, Demon’s Souls, and Baba is You. It’s amazing to me that I’ve never heard of a game this lauded.
Prepare yourself to get inundated with recommendations. Antichamber, Tunic, Talos Principle, Blue Prince, Return of the Obra Dinn, Outer Wilds, Superliminal, literally every Zachtronics game (most especially Opus Magnum)...
It's a puzzle maker's puzzle game. The reason why it's so lauded is because the design is so tight. Kinda like how there's certain buildings the public thinks is ugly, but architects all like it because it tickles that part of the architect brain. It's a game that gives you that ah-ha moment. Kinda that moment where you walk from the forest into a clearing, but for your brain.
The game is hard. I only kinda got the hang of it, and I didn't quite get to that ah-ha moment. You have to be willing to sit with it and think. I think with sokoban games, you can often just almost random walk your way to a solution, because the state space and its transitions is easy enough to wander into. But I didn't find that to be the case with SSR. You have to be able to reason about the state space changes, I think because the state space isn't exactly euclidean, so it's harder to wander into the solution.
I don't think I've ever heard of Demon's Souls being categorized as a puzzle game. I suppose some of the bosses have a trick to figure out? But I'd still think it falls into the action RPG genre by a wide margin.
No "The Witness"? Not incredibly challenging, but I very much enjoyed its blend of puzzling and aesthetic.
if we're going to plug random puzzle games on this thread, IMO the most underdiscussed puzzle game of all time is Recursed, the only game i've played which properly explores recursion as a mechanic, and (MINOR SPOILER) the only game i've played which detects when you have created logical contradictions, and for each contradiction you achieve rewards you with a secret bonus level.
Routing games like Mini Metro/Motorways, Freeways, and Fly Corp are not quite puzzle games in the traditional sense, but I'd definitely encourage any puzzle fans to try them.
Demon’s Souls???
I guess Zelda, Metroid and Half-Life also count as puzzle games then. :)
I can recommend Void Stranger. Real mystery box of a game. The first ending seriously hooked me into figuring out all its secrets.
Little known, but a warm recommendation, both for the puzzles and atmosphere: The Swapper. (disclaimer: I did some coding work for this game)
Give "Please Don't Touch Anything" a try.
For another niche hit check out Recursed
I wish that Opera Omnia, also by Stephen Lavelle, got more attention. It is mind-blowing exploration of the idea of propaganda and revisionist history, which somehow also manages to be engaging and fun, with an incredibly unique core mechanic.
https://www.increpare.com/game/opera-omnia.html
This one? It looks interesting but definitely a lot less visible than SSR and not on storefronts or etc, right?
Surprised nobody mentioned Fish Fillets 2, which is a top 3 puzzle game imho.
My list:
1. Antichamber
2. Fish Fillets 2
3. Baba is You
4. Ittle Dew (esp. the Master Dungeon)
5. An Architect's Adventure
6. Cosmic Express
7. Talos Principle
8. Stephen's Sausage Roll
9. Portal
10. Cocoon
A couple of my favourites to add to your list:
- Patrick's Parabox
- Blue Prince
No shade thrown, but I always preferred my game with some amount of story or artistic ambition beyond mere puzzling.
I'd take Void Stranger or probably even Deadly Rooms of Death: The Second Sky over Stephen's Sausage Roll any day, I imagine.
If you or anyone else reading this haven’t finished Stephen’s Sausage Roll to the very end, including reading all the story book paragraphs along the way (which increase in poignancy and frequency as the game winds to a close) then I strongly encourage you to do so. No spoilers!
de•li•cious saus•ag•es
I love pure puzzles and completed SSR. The story consists of sign plaques that narrate the history of the fictional world, and how your player character fulfills their place in the world through the main goal of cooking sausages. A bit unique and interesting, though not particularly complex, and you can guess the twist before it reveals. In other words, a puzzle game with a short story interspersed, perhaps 99% puzzles and 1% reading. The music consists of relaxing algorithmic ambience. The artistic ambition aims for surrealism and minimalism. I like it a lot, but I recommend against it for you.
Deadly Rooms of Death is criminally underrated and generally unknown. Journey to Rooted Hold is personally my DRoD of choice.
Everyone’s different.
I’m good with zero-story puzzle games. I’ve spent many hours in Simon Tathem’s Puzzles [1] on my iPhone, just for the 100% pure logic goodness that they are.
[1] https://apps.apple.com/us/app/simon-tathams-puzzles/id622220...
As a British person, this is confusing since the game doesn't involve a sausage roll!
Not surprised, he’s a friend whom I watched build the game over a few years in the 2010s. He was EXTREMELY thorough in the playtesting, it set such an unrealistic expectations for me with games I play now
FYI it's on sale on Steam today: $5.99
Two recommendations for puzzle lovers that like more open ended challenges:
Deadly Rooms of Death has same movement style as SSR. It is amazing series of games each with unique mechanics. It often evokes that feeling of being in active communication with puzzle author through evolving level design.
I've also enjoyed Rhell: Warped Worlds & Troubled Times, a recently released gem. It is completely opposite of SSR, with how broadly you can approach the puzzles depending on which spells you have available (with many parts becoming too easy if you postpone them). Many games design their puzzles with a single solution. Rhell takes approach of "you cannot pass here, let's see you try" which is a fun spin on the genre. I also enjoyed how you gain abilities through game. In many modern games you unlock higher jumping by collecting skill points and spending them on skill tree. Here the same ability is emergently and organically incorporated into game mechanics. Over the playthrough the player collects new spell runes; at one point you gain rune to apply the spells to yourself. By assigning a combo strong-raise-on-self to a hotkey, you empower the character with the higher jump ability and stop using the normal jump. There's all kind of crazy and innovative ideas in there and the entire game is delightful.
Good sokoban, but maybe my fastest rage/impatience quit on a puzzle game at 10-ish hours. I find it too difficult.
If anyone enjoys snarky long videos critiquing games, they might enjoy Joseph Anderson's review of this game: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6dsQtBHk0eE
I recently watched "A Course on Puzzle Game Design" by Matthew VanDevander and he mentioned Stephen's Sausage Roll a few times.
https://youtu.be/85mAmP4k1Co?si=yuxpJ2xhkH7r_eo3
The video has lots of helpful information for puzzle game design. I have started to incorporate some of that knowledge into my own puzzle game https://qcgeneral29.itch.io/lets-learn
I completely understand how this game is brilliant and a perfect puzzle game. But it was so hard and frustrating I could not play it.
Kula world was and always will be my favourite of these sort of games. Simple yet really challenging.
Abandonware at this point I enjoyed Microsoft Pandora's Box as plain old jigsaw fun. It seems to scream for multi-touch support and higher resolution but it was left to rot.
Is this what Jonathan Blow is trying to copy with Sinking Star?
Seems like a variant of Towers of Hanoi.
> most influential puzzle games ever
Never heard of it.
It's a perfect game.