After reviewing the pleasing puzzler Globesweeper, I used to be really useful an entire different pile of current puzzle games I’ve missed. I’m working my method by means of them, and the primary to report again on is 2017’s Tametsi. A game that takes its lead from one of the best PC puzzle game of all, Hexcells, after which combines it with the core Minesweeper mechanic. Which is to say, bespoke, intricately created puzzles, for which guessing isn’t essential, however pondering actually is.
If Tametsi is responsible of something, it’s of not brilliantly explaining itself from the beginning. It has fairly the muddle of puzzle sorts, however doesn’t fairly handle Hexcells’ masterful introduction of recent guidelines (over the course of all three of its games) in such a method that they at all times really feel pure. However, when you’re in, you’re actually in. And it’s an actual pleasure to see concepts so sensibly borrowed being so impressively tailored and tweaked.
A puzzle begins with a grid of principally clean tiles, and some with numbers, indicating what number of of these surrounding are to be marked as bombs. That eliminates different cells, which when clicked on reveal extra numbers – Minesweeper fashion. But there’s a bunch of different data to incorporate in your deductions, two of that are straight from Hexcells. There are generally numbers outdoors of the grid of cells, which point out what number of are in that row or column, and there are whole bomb counts identified from the beginning, which regularly provide the important piece of data to have the ability to succeed.
But Tametsi takes this all additional, by means of a mix of each shapes and hues. Most of the 160 (!!!) puzzles listed here are multicoloured, and also you’re additionally knowledgeable what number of bombs are to be marked on every of those. So at the beginning you may know there are 30 bombs to mark, six of them purple, three inexperienced, and twelve crimson (the remainder being the default gray). So realizing at a sure level that there are solely two purples left, and that sure clues let you know during which teams they should be, you possibly can take away any others remaining. Adding on this additional layer of data permits puzzles but extra methods to disguise how they’re hiding their subsequent potential transfer, making it plenty of enjoyable to juggle the weather.
Shape-wise, it’s throughout. Some puzzles are squared grids, others are hexagons, however then there are some product of octagons and squares, others product of in another way sized squares, and a pair from triangles. This actually retains me on my tippitoes, as a result of every time I’ve to regulate what I’m searching for, noticing the overlaps, the edge-to-edge matches, and re-aligning my mind.
The solely time the place I believe this really turns into just a little an excessive amount of of a trip-up is in relation to sq. puzzles, the place some require you to search for matches throughout corners (so contemplating every sq. tile to be surrounded by eight others) and others simply these touching their sides (so with solely 4 neighbours). The distinction is communicated solely by means of a really tiny little brand within the prime proper of the display, far too simple to overlook. It would have been much better if it might have been communicated visually by the puzzle itself, maybe rounded corners once they don’t apply? Something like that.
My different thought is that it actually wants a system for fainting out a quantity when it has the proper variety of bombs marked – that might make the puzzles rather a lot cleaner to unravel.
I’m 32 puzzles in, and that’s taken me a very good lengthy whereas. That there are 68 extra of those to go, plus one other 60 which were launched for the reason that game’s preliminary launch, makes me a really completely satisfied little man.
These are prime notch. No, they don’t fairly match Hexcells for its elegant magnificence, however then evaluating a puzzle game to Hexcells is like demanding that each movie match Citizen Kane, and that’s not useful. But if that’s an itch you want scratching, this may positively do the trick. Very splendidly. AND IT COSTS TWO POUNDS! £2! Good gravy, that’s good.
PS. Something else value noting is the work of “inn0centive“, a German chap referred to as Tom who makes essentially the most completely splendid walkthrough movies for all these kinds of puzzle games. All of Tametsi is here, and take a look at his channel for every other puzzle game you is perhaps caught on. I solely say all this as a result of he’s been unknowingly serving to me out for years, and he deserves credit score.
