I highly recommend this game to all those who bemoan that all games are the same and nothing new gets released.
Gorogoa is best described as a really pretty puzzle game with a gameplay mechanic I haven’t seen anywhere else. The puzzles are non obvious at first, but at the end you get an eye for them, a little bit similar to The Witness. You have 4 different panels of a comic and you have to align and combine them in a way that they interact to solve the puzzle. It’s easiest to understand if you look at a trailer or let’s play, since it directly works with the visual medium of comics (but don’t watch too long or same problem with every puzzle game, you will know the solutions already).
The developer started in this direction by cutting up comics and rearranging the panels. This gave rise to the idea to incorporate a similar mechanic into a video game.
There is even a story being told in the panels without a word in the roughly 2 hours of puzzling. But you will probably not understand it completely till a second play through, since the story is told in the background pictures and isn’t chronological, but disjointed, as fits the games central mechanic of rearranging panels. But this anachronistic storytelling style in combination with the pastel color and very ornamental graphic style is the reason I compared this game to an LSD trip. A highly enjoyable one.
You and I have had very different experiences with LSD.
That might be for sure. Drugs are a bit different for everyone.
I meant it in connection that LSD is a hallucinogen, often regarding geometric forms and can make you see or rather feel connections between formerly unrelated things. Additionally it changes the feeling of time and space. All those are related to Gorogoa as well.
So, Antichamber, then…?
LSD: Dream Emulator must also rank up there, surely? :)
Gorogoa has been on my “pile of shame” for several years now. Perhaps today’s the day.
I don’t think it’s a LSD like trip. But you definitely go “WOOAHHH” a few times. It’s well made and rather short.
GOG Link: https://www.gog.com/en/game/gorogoa
Gorogoa rocks.
If you want something more trippy, here are a few puzzle games to try:
- Bridge - MC Escher-esque, non-euclidian geometry
- Manifold Garden - you change gravity
- GNOG - “tactile” puzzle that’s really quite odd
- Antichamber - non-euclidean geometry
Each of those are quite good, and a bit more of an “LSD-trip” than Gorogoa, and you can go further down the rabbit hole if you search for “psychadelic games” or similar.
Also (now also on PC): Monument Valley 1 & 2: https://www.monumentvalleygame.com/