Recent reviews by mcpower

It is absurd that Mobius can make something that lives up to the story and the ingenuity of the original Outer Wilds.

If you are afraid of the dark, like me, you can avoid it for as long as you want, then use some puzzle solving skills (like the base game, experimentation is recommended!) to avoid most of the darker sections of the DLC.

Balatro hooks you in with a simple but fun mechanic - making poker hands - and keeps you hooked with a bunch of roguelike spice (jokers, levelling up your poker hands, enhancing your deck) and most importantly... seeing numbers grow very large.

It's very accessible, even if you haven't played any roguelikes before, while having more depth and replayability than you might expect.

If you're reading this review, you're probably in the demographic of people who will love the game (i.e. most Steam users). Go buy it... but also consider buying it on your phone too, because that's where I spend most of my time playing Balatro.

A puzzle/exploration "metroidbrainia" that will pique your curiosity. If you have ever asked yourself "why did this happen?" or "how is that possible?" and just wanted to know more... you should absolutely play this game.

good story-based deckbuilder game

Patrick's Parabox is a masterpiece in puzzle design elegance. It is the ultimate result of:

• taking a simple concept: Sokoban, but levels can have levels within them that you can enter and exit,
  
• reducing the rules to be as simple as possible:
  
  • there are only two objects: boxes and walls
    
  • you control a box
    
  • if a box moves out of bounds, it exits the box it's in
    
  • box-to-box movement can either push, enter or (area 4 mechanic - try spotting it in the trailer!), which may result in more box movements
    
• and exploring every single emergent behaviour that results from those simple rules.

In fact, the simplicity of the rules is arguably a spoiler - if you think hard enough, you can figure out many of the concepts explored in the game!

Just those mechanics would be enough to make a solid, small game... but Patrick's Parabox takes it to the next level with additional mechanics. It's very easy to make a game convoluted and overwhelming by introducing additional mechanics, either by having too many mechanics or each mechanic being too complicated. Patrick's Parabox does not fall for this trap - there are just enough new mechanics to keep things interesting but not overwhelming, and each mechanic is so natural that it only takes a single introduction level to fully understand it.

The puzzles themselves are also excellent. The negative reviews I've seen contradict my own experiences - to quote the Steam description:

Originally posted by About this game:

Each puzzle contains a new idea; there is no filler.

The overall difficulty of the game is indeed easier than other games like Baba Is You. If you're a puzzle game master, Patrick's Parabox overall difficulty might be a bit on the easier side, and each "new idea" might be so simple for you that they don't seem like new ideas. On the other hand, this makes Patrick's Parabox's excellent ideas much more accessible to a wide variety of people without the need to enable the "Unlock all puzzles" option in the settings.

I personally found the difficulty pacing to be excellent - the main puzzles are indeed on the easier side, but there are harder optional puzzles marked with a red border, extra-hard post-game puzzles and a level editor for user-made levels.

If Baba Is You is like a fine dining restaurant, Patrick's Parabox is like a brunch cafe: sometimes, you're just not in the mood for something deep and complex, but aren't willing to go as low as junk food.