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‘The Talos Principle 2’ brings mind-bending puzzles to a new generation
Sony revealed The Talos Principle 2 at its PlayStation Games Showcase today. The sequel to the 2015 first-person puzzler promises a greatly expanded scope with “more mind-bending puzzles to solve, more surreal environments to explore, more secrets to uncover, a deeper story to lose yourself in, and bigger questions to boggle your brain.” Developer Croteam describes the sequel as simultaneously familiar and fresh.
Disney+ announces two adventure competition shows for teens
While Quibi is remaking the once-popular Nickelodeon show Legends of the Hidden Temple, Disney+ is planning two of its own mazes-based, puzzle-solving shows that could be Legends of the Hidden Temple-esque with a reality TV spin. Today, the streaming service announced plans for the new content: The Quest and The Maze.
Magic Leap’s Independent Creator Program delivers its first app
Last fall, Magic Leap launched its Independent Creator Program (ICP), which was meant to give developers the funding and support they need to launch apps and games on the company's augmented reality headset. Today, the first app to come out of the program is available. Portugal-based ONTOP Studios has created PuzzlAR: World Tour, an AR version of its popular mobile game, for Magic Leap One.
'Moss' free VR missions come to PlayStation, Oculus Rift, Vive and Windows
Oculus Quest owners were treated to a free new chapter of Polyarc's adorable puzzle game Moss back in May -- now it's rolling out to other platforms. On June 25th, the "Twilight Garden" update will roll out across PlayStation VR, Oculus Rift/S, HTC Vive and Windows MR, giving all VR gamers the chance to guide young hero mouse Quill through an enchanting new world of puzzle adventures. The Twilight Garden will update automatically and for free, while the game itself is available for download through Steam, Oculus Rift and HTC Viveport stores for $30.
VR puzzle game 'Moss' gets new missions for the Oculus Quest
To celebrate the release of wireless VR headset Oculus Quest, Polyarc is releasing new content for Moss, the adorable puzzle adventure that's made waves on the VR gaming landscape. Our swashbuckling mouse heroine Quill will now be able to explore the Twilight Garden, a new chapter that unveils vast new chambers, a fresh realm of puzzles, unknown enemies and unique weaponry. The Twilight Garden, along with the rest of Moss, will be available for Oculus Quest when the headset launches on May 21st. Players on other platforms, including PlayStation VR, Oculus Rift/S, HTC Vive and Windows MR will get the update for free in June.
Surreal adventure game ‘The Gardens Between’ is coming to Switch
Independent developer The Voxel Agents has announced it plans to release abstract puzzle title The Gardens Between for Nintendo Switch in addition to previously disclosed PlayStation 4, PC and Mac platforms. It's expected to arrive sometime in Q3 this year.
'Forgotton Anne' is a puzzle-platform game hidden inside an anime
Forgotton Anne looks like a gentle animated feature film you can't quite remember the name of, with an art style somewhere between Studio Ghibli and those curious kids' animation series I used to watch from Europe. The charming characters, mostly anthropomorphic objects called forgotlings, make for an entertaining adventure, combined with occasionally smart puzzles and surprising gameplay twists. That said, ThroughLine Games have made a gorgeous animated story where the gameplay comes second.
Hands-on with coming-of-age puzzle game 'Where Cards Fall'
Where Cards Fall looks like a dream. Literally, I've had dreams that feel like this game -- the world is segmented into blocky platforms covered in grass, asphalt and clouds, as if a rudimentary algorithm was asked to create cities and forests, and it spat out gorgeous geometric interpretations of the real world. The game's art style highlights this dreamlike quality, covering all those cubes and slopes in soft, hand-drawn colors and dramatic shadows while ambient music hums in the background. Playing Where Cards Fall feels exactly like it looks -- ethereal yet grounded in reality, shockingly complicated and soothing at the same time.
Google teases I/O 2018 with treasure maps and cryptic clues (updated)
As it does every year, Google is sending users on a geeky goose chase to learn details about its upcoming I/O 2018 Developer's conference. The first clue, posted on Twitter, is a bunch of binary code that (spoiler) reveals a website address, google.com/io. That leads you to a splash screen and Google Maps, where you're positioned in front of a Google office building ready to enter into a reception area. Update: Well, the mystery didn't last long. The conference will run May 8th-10th. In Mountain View, naturally.
'Photographs' dark narrative masquerades as a mobile puzzle game
EightyEight Games released the popular puzzle/battle game 10000000 and its sequel You Must Build a Boat to great success. Now developer Luca Redwood is ready to reveal his next project for the studio: Photographs. The new puzzle game will release next year for PC, Mac, Linux, iOS and Android.
Stunning visual puzzler 'The Witness' arrives on iOS
After months of teases and rumour, striking 3D puzzle game The Witness has finally landed in the App Store, for both iPhone and iPad. Likened to a modern-day Myst, the open world game sees players wake up on a strange, colorful island with no memory of who they are or how they got there. Only by exploring the vast island, discovering clues and completing curious puzzles can they hope to regain their memory and somehow find their way home. With dozens of locations to discover and more than 500 puzzles to solve, The Witness is a beautiful beast of a game, available now for $10/£10.
Yes, you can actually beat 'Threes!'
Just when you thought the deceptively complex puzzler Threes! wasn't beatable, the internet comes along and proves you wrong. Three and a third years later (confirmed by the development team) the folks behind the ThreesPorn Twitter account have captured something special in the GIFs embedded below. It's quite a bit more elaborate as the victory screen for Solitaire on Windows, too. If you're going to strive to beat it yourself now that you know it's possible, don't scroll down. But if you want to know what score you should strive to top here's your target: 1,594,458.
Playing with shiny, mysterious blocks in 'QUBE 2'
The original QUBE came out in 2012, making a name for itself as a clever spatial-puzzle game. Nearly five years later, the developers at Toxic Games have unveiled QUBE 2, a sequel that takes the best aspects of the original and throws them all in a beautiful new 3D environment.
Try passing 'The Turing Test' August 30th on Xbox One
Given video gaming's reliance on artificial intelligence and penchant for sci-fi themes, it's surprising that only now there's a game named after Alan Turing's famous A.I. test. Here we are though, with The Turing Test hitting Xbox One on August 30th. It's also been promised for Steam next month. A post on Xbox Wire makes the game sound an awful lot like Portal, to be honest. It's a first-person puzzler set in a sterile research facility on Jupiter's moon Europa wherein you'll use a gun of sorts to control A.I.-powered machines and "solve puzzles that only a human could solve." That's in addition to other tasks designed to bend your brain.
'Maize' mates first-person puzzle gaming with sentient corn
Game developers are no strangers to using wild concepts to catch your attention, but this one might just work. Finish Line Games has revealed Maize, a first-person puzzler that revolves around scientists creating "sentient corn." Yep. And reportedly, that's just the start of the absurdity. On top of what learning what the corn wants (besides fewer crows), you'll deal with a secret underground research facility and a Russian Teddy Ruxpin clone. It's too soon to say whether the underlying gameplay will be as interesting as the premise, but you'll get to find out first hand when the title reaches PCs in the fall.
Step inside a mind filled with beauty and fear in 'Figment'
Figment is a colorful, whimsical puzzle game that combines childlike fantasies with mature themes including death, disease and trauma. It shouldn't work. These ideas should be oil and water, existing around each other but never fully melding into a cohesive experience. But Figment defies logic -- even in an early build, the game is magical and deep at the same time. It's like an episode of Adventure Time mixed with the adorable puzzler Machinarium but in a musical, hand-painted world.
Uber recruits engineers with coding puzzles during rides
Uber knows it has a captive audience during rides, and is trying to pick out the coders among them with a new app feature called "Code on the Road." It pops up in the main app and offers "hacker challenges" that are basically 60-second timed coding and debugging tests. Some riders offered the quizzes (like Twitter user Graham Gnall, below) actually work as engineers, but Uber assures Business Insider that it's not tapping any personal info. Rather, it's rolling out the feature in cities with large numbers of tech workers, so you might see it in places like Boston, Seattle and Portland.
Lumines changes hands, returning on iOS and Android
Mobcast acquired the Lumines and Meteos properties from Q Entertainment, the Japanese smartphone game developer announced this week, as translated by Gematsu. Additionally, a new Lumines game is on the way for iOS and Android, and will be a collaboration with the colorful puzzle series' creator, Tetsuya Mizuguchi. Mizuguchi will work on the latest Lumines at his new California-based studio, Enhance Games. The Rez and Space Channel 5 creator co-founded Q Entertainment in 2003 following his departure from Sega. Mizuguchi left the developer in March. The last Lumines game to launch was 2012's Lumines: Electronic Symphony (seen above). [Image: Q Entertainment]
Magnetic: Cage Closed entering dark portal in March
Swedish developer Guru Games announced a new first-person puzzle game this week, Magnetic: Cage Closed. Slated to launch in March for PC via Steam, PlayStation 4 and Xbox One, Magnetic imprisons players in a dark labyrinth with a magnet gun, solving environmental puzzles to progress through the industrial facility. The game's announcement trailer gives strong Portal vibes, showing multiple wall and floor switches being activated with the toss of a heavy metal cube. Magnetic: Cage Closed will launch at $14.95 with a special edition slated to cost $19.95. It will be published by Gambitious Digital Entertainment and will be playable at PAX South this weekend. Guru Games' other project in development is the Oculus Rift-supporting, first-person horror game Medusa's Labyrinth. The developer canceled its Kickstarter project for the game in November after it came to a "standstill." It drummed up 55,805 SEK ($6,824) in support, far short of Guru Games' 2,500,000 SEK ($350,000 USD) goal. Guru Games discussed its failed crowdfunding campaign in a blog, acknowledging that it wanted to time the campaign with the Scandinavian launch of Kickstarter despite spending two weeks "creating a prototype, a card house of a game," before putting "it out there for all to see." [Image: Guru Games]
Pneuma pneuma, yay: First-person puzzler hits Xbox next month
Pneuma: Breath of Life will launch on February 27 for Xbox One, developer Deco Digital announced. The first-person puzzle game is currently on Steam Greenlight, seeking community approval for distribution on the PC service as well. Pneuma will be console-exclusive to Xbox One for its first 30 days. The game features environmental challenges based in a fairly mysterious setting, as seen in the trailer after the break. In it, players "progress through a narrated story of self-discovery, exploring the fundamental nature of being," according to the developer. Pneuma: Breath of Life's puzzles are expected to "force players to think outside the box and explore beyond what they know as reality through the eyes of a god," with voice-over work provided by Jay Britton. The PC version of the game will support Oculus Rift. [Image: Deco Digital]
