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Alan Hazelden’s Thinky Third Thursday – August 2024

Alan Hazelden, 15 August 2024
We're delighted to bring you the latest edition of Alan Hazelden's Thinky Third Thursday newsletter. Alan is the founder of studio and publisher Draknek & Friends and designer of renowned puzzle games like A Monster's Expedition, Cosmic Express, and A Good Snowman is Hard to Build.

News: Draknek New Voices Puzzle Grant

In case you missed it, we have some really exciting news: applications for the 2024 Draknek New Voices Puzzle Grant are now open! This year we're offering grants of $15,000 USD each and a year's mentorship to 6 thinky puzzle game developers from underrepresented groups all around the world. If that could be you, then I wholeheartedly encourage you to apply here.

Recent thinky highlights

Thinky Collective games: Life of the Zip Bird, Theodoor, One Too Many (web)

These three games were each made "exquisite corpse" style - many contributors in sequence, each one adding something to the game and then passing it on to the next. It's always interesting to see how these turn out! Life of the Zip Bird is an impressive example of the value of theming, while One Too Many feels like that aspect could have been pushed further, and Theodoor has a very clever central mechanic only slightly marred by weird edge cases.

Arranger: A Role-Puzzling Adventure, by Furniture & Mattress LLC (Windows, macOS, Nintendo Switch, PlayStation 5, iOS, Android)

I played this game a bunch throughout development, and it was really exciting to see it come together! This is a self-described "role-puzzling adventure," meaning you're moving around a world and doing quests. The hook? Jemma, the main character, cannot walk - instead, she shifts the plane she's standing on horizontally or vertically. Other characters? They're coming with! Need to carry something? Figure out how to shift it alongside you at all times. The smart and clever base system is joined by clever additional mechanics, silly writing, and a beautiful art style. The game is approachable as a one-or-two sitting game, too, so be sure to check it out!

Bee Magic, by EPICPIKAGUY (web)

The core mechanic of Bee Magic is that you collect various magic spells, which are all activated by specific movement patterns. It's a single-screen puzzle with many alternate solutions and surprising interactions to discover.

World of Goo 2, by 2D BOY and Tomorrow Corporation (Windows, macOS, Nintendo Switch)

Releasing a full 16 years(!) after the original game, World of Goo 2 has a slow initial start, followed by a lot of new mechanics being thrown at you all at once, followed by a really exciting and interesting mid-game where it all comes together. While I found myself wishing the onboarding was perhaps handled better, the hybrid "bridge constructor" and resource management puzzler justifies itself easily with a wide array of interesting new ideas and twists. While I haven't finished it yet, I'm excited to see what the endgame has in store for this delightful game.

Foggy on the Details, by "Karl The Fog" (web)

I don't play a lot of sudoku puzzles / sudoku variants and generally I don't enjoy them (normally I get halfway through, hit a contradiction, and realise I must have made a stupid mistake some unknown time in the past and close the tab in frustration). Having said that, this is a very good and fun sudoku variant!

Thinky releases from the past month

Upcoming games to watch for

The Legend of Zelda: Echoes of Wisdom, by Nintendo

There's just a little over a month left until the next Legend of Zelda game launches and it looks like Zelda's first (official) turn as the main character is going to be very puzzle-focused. The first trailer showed her ability to create "echoes" of objects to access new areas of the world, and in the most recent trailer we got a glimpse of several more puzzly abilities. I'm very excited to check it out soon, when it comes out on September 26th.

Tactical Breach Wizards, by Suspicious Developments

I don't cover every tactics game that comes out, but I'd put Tactical Breach Wizards alongside Into the Breach as a firmly puzzly (and very satisfying) tactics game. The story is also pretty fun, with high stakes but not-so-serious writing. It's coming out in a week, on August 22.

Maxwell's puzzling demon, by muratsubo

Maxwell's demon lives in a world of blocks which are either hot, cold or neutral. As you might remember from the classic thought experiment about thermodynamics, cold or neutral blocks are no problem to push around, but the demon will immediately die if next to a hot block. This doesn't look like much, but I played the demo a while ago and really enjoyed the puzzle design. It's coming out at the end of this month, on August 30th.

That's it!

Did you particularly enjoy any of the games above, or do you have a recommendation for a game I should check out? Please get in touch!

This article is also available via Alan Hazelden's Thinky Third Thursday newsletter.

Disclaimer: Thinky Games is part of the Carina Initiatives and may have professional relationships with individuals and businesses related to the subject of this article. Please see our Editorial Policy for details.

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