And lest you get lost, the game abundantly signposts the locations of the puzzles, their difficulty, and whether they are completed. The actual mechanics are very simple, and when you try to use and combine objects you’ll see clearly marked interaction points, freeing you from having to orient them to within a degree or an inch to succeed. Some games are challenging for all the wrong reasons, but fortunately, The Talos Principle is a highly accessible game, and knows exactly what kind of challenges is wants to present – or, more to the point, which it doesn’t. But trust me when I say that the game’s consistent ability to produce the memorable “aha!” highs when you have solved a problem completely on your own is more than worth the struggle (and indeed is very much contingent upon it). Given the attention deficiency and instant-gratification mindset that is allegedly so common today, it can be tempting to resort to online hints and solutions at the first sign of difficulty. Challenging in the right wayĭemanding as it is, the most challenging aspect of the experience might be to simply stick with the puzzles until you figure them out yourself. You are often required to think outside the box and challenge your implicit assumptions about how the pieces actually work, and the game, like all great entries in this genre, is highly effective in evoking that special “puzzle high” when you have finally solved a particularly difficult problem. You will have to juggle not just the individual pieces you have previously encountered, but also their interaction when combined in new ways. Like all good puzzle games, The Talos Principle’s more difficult challenges aren’t simple separable combinations of earlier concepts. The jammer is one of the tools at your disposal in many puzzles. Thankfully, the difficulty curve is well tuned, with the basics you learn early on being neatly folded into bigger, more complex solutions later. The puzzles start off simple, but the forgivingly low bar belies the complexity to come. The game contains no formal tutorial like a child left alone with her toys (and only the occasional admonishing remark from her omnipresent dad), you learn through play. There are also larger puzzles where you do not immediately see where you should go or what you need to do, and these will test your spatial reasoning and working memory. You know what you have to do, but somehow you’re always left with one less item than you think you can possibly solve it with. The Talos Principle has all the hallmarks of great puzzle games: The individual elements and their effects are simple to understand, and the goal is often locked away in plain sight. The strength of the puzzles lies not in the pieces themselves, but in the ingenuity with which they are assembled. There are no novel mechanics à la portal guns here the individual puzzle pieces are well established: You have your cubes, pressure plates, and redirectable energy beams like in Portal 2, some timey wimey stuff reminiscent of Braid, and a few other simple tools. With these conundrums, you’re thrown into the task of collecting the tetrominoes (Tetris pieces) at the end of each puzzle, which are used to unlock even more puzzles and worlds. Prisms and energy beams are central components of many puzzles. But why? And what are you? And what is the point of completing all these increasingly difficult puzzles? The game starts with a boot sequence and a view of your robotic body as you wake up in some walled garden, and the periodic visual glitching of random objects clearly hint that you’re in some kind of simulation. There are many mysteries to unpack, but you’re not entirely blind to your circumstances going in. The Talos Principle takes the excellent puzzle design from Portal and the free-roaming and enigmatic mood of Myst, adds a generous helping of philosophy and religious overtones, and tops it off with a sprinkling of Greek and Egyptian myths. Thankfully, Croteam evidently has a knack for more than just frivolous shooters. 1 When working on Serious Sam 4, experiments led to some complicated puzzles, and the developer was inspired to promote them to a separate game. The game’s developer, Croteam, is more or less exclusively known for Serious Sam, a series of decidedly non-serious shooters. The Talos Principle is in many ways an unexpected and happy surprise. But it is not just the mechanics what will challenge you your enigmatic circumstances will also have you befuddled in this philosophically heavy game. The words, more than subtly inspired by Genesis, invite you to start your quest to solve increasingly difficult puzzles, for whichever reason. Thus begins The Talos Principle, with a fatherly, yet commanding voice coming from everywhere and nowhere. Hear now my voice, and know that I am your maker, and I am called ELOHIM. You are risen from the dust, and you walk in my garden.
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