Play it on: Home windows (Steam Deck YMMV)
Present objective: Cease enjoying Hexcells each day
Again in September I waxed on in regards to the virtues of the Hexcells trilogy, riveting logic puzzlers of the best high quality. Then I ended up replaying all three, doubling my Steam playtimes. Upon resurfacing final week, I knew these cells, beautiful as they had been, had been practically spent. I wanted one other supply of mind ticklers par excellence, however whence? There exist actually 1000’s of unknown puzzle video games to find, and few would slake my particular thirst. The place to even begin?
This was bizarre. I’m…not used to having no concept what to play.
Possibly Steam’s discovery options might assist. Hexcells Infinite was tagged “Informal” and “Logic” so I filtered with these, after which sorted by common score. Aha. There was Infinite ranked at quantity seven, with a number of Zachtronics video games above. Slightly below? 14 Minesweeper Variants. Sure, that’s the sport’s title. Unimaginable critiques, $6.99. Purchased it. One reviewer wrote, “The subsequent logical step if Hexcells and Tametsi are amongst your favourite puzzlers.” Tametwhat? Appeared it up. “Overwhelmingly Optimistic,” $2.99. Purchased that too, and returned to my newly expanded hoard to evaluate the spoils.
I’m solely about two and a half hours into Tametsi so it’s nonetheless busy unfurling its intricacies, however I can already verify, it positive has ‘em. And a few fantastic puzzle designs as nicely. Its deduction-driven, hazard-marking gameplay is definitely a little bit extra Minesweeper-y than was Hexcells’, but it surely retains my beloved’s dedication to logic above all: Zero guessing is required. If you happen to don’t know which cells to clear subsequent, it’s since you gotta look tougher, making use of an ever-expanding vary of logical lenses to the emotionless grid that confronts you.
Tametsi, fortunately, is strictly what I used to be in search of. (No pun meant.)
Only one criticism to date: The sport principally has programmer artwork, and possibly three sound results. I by no means realized how a lot Hexcells’ engaging minimalist visuals and droning, ambient musicality helped it go down properly, however I sorely miss these right here. Unhealthy graphics might be fantastic, however generally the newbie appearances of Tametsi’s busy, color-clashing puzzles truly impair straightforward comprehension. It might be fascinating to see what a graphic designer might do to wash that up so the sport’s presentation lived as much as its design.
An even bigger situation, maybe, is that frequent Kotaku visitor editor John “Botherer” Walker has seemingly identified about Tametsi for years and by no means “bothered” to inform me. You suppose you recognize an individual… — Alexandra Corridor
