It kind of take some of the wind out of the sails when you realize that the demo you played at PAX was one whole quarter of the game. I know this because as the shortest game I’ve played this year, the game’s page in my Steam library was actually able to give me the exact time instead of rounding it up. Like a lot of other games that boast similar pros, Gorogoa does have one notable flaw in that it’s short. So to recap, Gorogoa is a beautiful, hand-drawn game with a intriguing narrative that it emphasizes, along with unique, even complex mechanics that make for great puzzles, all designed by a one-person team and…okay, let’s not beat around the bush any more. ![]() And unsurprisingly, said cinematics and artwork are absolutely drop dead gorgeous, with Jason’s artwork being nicely detailed and perfectly blending realistic cities with fantasy elements (and even seemingly evoking pop-up books with the puzzle where you overlay panels, to great effect), full of unique architecture where all the parts are designed in such a way that they connect perfectly, even when one is in a completely different timeline and location. There are even some particularly cool touches such as still being able to move around panels while a cinematic plays in one of them, meaning that you can briefly explore other surroundings, puzzles, and even other parts of the story as it goes on. It’s the type of trippy, experimental art that needs to be checked out. Another sees you overlaying a panel of a man climbing a staircase over a sun-like design to create a massive gear, powering a rotating mural in what is essentially another world to get to another scene that you need in a different panel to create a path.Īctually, trying to explain Gorogoa’s puzzles isn’t really doing them justice. For example, one puzzle has you turning a simple small stone in a study into a massive boulder when it falls down and goes into the next panel, which you then have to switch into a stone again to break a jar, all which requires proper timing as you swamp the two panels back and forth. The best moments are the ones where you truly have to think outside the box and essentially warp reality. Experimentation is the key here, as well as being able to recognize patterns that may match up. Gorogoa easily has some of the best puzzle design among this year’s games, always remaining just challenging enough while still being fair. Of course, like any good puzzle game, things never stay that easy. Reach a dead end for our main character? Look around one of the panels for a connecting path that leads onward. And you begin with equally simple examples, like getting three panels to zoom in on a branch with a bird and fruit on it to get the bird to rustle the branch and drop the fruit into a bowl. You click and drag panels, and click on the panels themselves to move around and zoom in and out when the options becomes available. You have four spaces, two by two, that you place various panels on, with the goal being to have them intersect in the correct ways so that you can advance. It’s also a purely visual trip, with everything being dialogue-free, relying only on the city settings and ruins, occasional word bubbles, and character actions to tell everything, which it all does incredibly well.īut one could almost argue that this is a case where the story, incredible as it is, actually gets outshined by the gameplay. It is indeed one of those stories that you really need to check out in person, full of several clever scenes and twists. Of course, why he’s collecting this fruit involves the presence of a large dragon-like figure, then events get presented in a non-linear fashion, and things quickly turn into a tale about spirituality and religion. At it’s most basic, it’s about a kid attempting to collect five various fruits. ![]() The setup for Gorogoa is…odd, to say the least. And naturally, this leaves us to ask the obvious question: was this fantastical comic adventure worth the wait? But now, with the help of publishers Annapurna Interactive, the finished product is finally ready for release. A puzzle/adventure game with a unique four-panel approach to storytelling, it made a lot of terrific first impressions and did well on the indie circuit. It may be easy to forget since it was quickly dwarfed by other games, but Jason Roberts’ Gorogoa first debuted over five years ago, with the lone designer having been working on it ever since.
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