Gorogoa

Gorogoa is a puzzle game based on arranging hand-drawn pictures. The minimalist point-and-click interface involves clicking and dragging the pictures to combine them into scenes that advance the story. Gorogoa delivers its puzzles in a lavish atmosphere, seamlessly uniting art and gameplay into a harmonious experience.

The game plays entirely on a grid of four squares, similar to a comic-strip layout. Depending on the scene, some or all of the squares will contain a picture. You can drag and drop the pictures into different positions on the grid, and you can also zoom into individual pictures to reveal intricate details or different views, often many layers deep. Sometimes moving an image separates the foreground from the background, leaving empty spots that can be layered on top of other images.

Combined in the right positions, the images meld, triggering animations that advance the story. This mechanic may seem simplistic, since the number of possible moves at any moment is small and distinctly brute-forceable. However, the fragments combine in a range of creative ways which require lateral thinking and constant reinterpretation of the visual elements. Joining the pictures together sometimes involves playing with scale and orientation in Escheresque ways.

The art, inspired by Byzantine design, is beautifully hand-drawn in pencil with digital coloring, and features bespoke animations for many of the interactions. It is also the sole vehicle for communicating the game’s melancholy, emotional story. Framed as a fantasy quest, but told without words, the story is open-ended. Vignettes of destruction, loss, and healing from various points in the lone character’s life meld in timeline-blurring ways that defy clean interpretation.

Clocking in at just a couple of hours, this short but beautiful and intriguing puzzle game will tease the brains of visual thinkers—and give you food for thought afterwards.

This description was written by Gwen C. Katz and edited by Oriane Tury.