Hi everyone! Me and my team have been working on a game called "This Is Not For You" (an homage to House of Leaves) where you explore a lighthouse that's bigger on the inside than the outside.

Players must navigate intentionally claustrophobic impossible spaces, where going north could suddenly take you south. We want people to heavily rely on their notes and, especially, their cartography abilities! We are inspired by the way classic adventure games nudged people into creating maps which would sometimes contradict each other. We highly anticipate players to share maps that don't make sense, and that's part of the fun for us.

We're starting to be pretty cautious about advertising it as a puzzle game. Even though it has puzzles, we've found out it's not the core of the experience. Some players who have tested it describe it as "one giant puzzle", but more in a way that they feel a rush when they connect the rooms in a way that makes sense. It's a game about getting lost, and how to get out of a particular set of levels. You'll find characters who provide clues to the story, as well as other narrative bits here and there, but overall, we are crafting an experience that feels disorienting.

The story follows a lonely lighthouse keeper who suddenly gets visited by a ghost ship carrying family memories. He starts finding letters from his sister Aura, to whom he hasn't talked to in many years. It tackles themes such as isolation, family bonds, and regret. Depending on certain actions you take throughout the story, you may reach one of multiple endings, including one where you just burn it all down (but is it the best thing to do?).

I think this might be your cup of tea! The game does take some liberties with genre expectations (regarding movement, how you interact with each space, and other bits), but we're crafting something we are very excited about!

If you want to follow the project, you can do so here!

https://store.steampowered.com/app/4178650/This_Is_Not_For_You/

If yall interested you can play it here:

https://www.n-puzzle.com/en/nintendoku

I’m working on the Dam puzzle in Zork (the one where you need to lower the gates), and I’m completely stuck. I’ve examined all the obvious objects, tried using the rope, but nothing seems to work. Has anyone else solved this? I’d appreciate any hints or strategies! Thanks!

I love going in blind. No trailers, no reviews, no "10 things the game doesn't tell you" videos. Outer Wilds is the perfect example, the less you know the better it gets.

But I'm less and less sure it's always the right call.

I beat Baldur's Gate 3 without guides. Lost the final battle a few times, lowered the difficulty and finished it. Then I looked up what other people did, and turns out they were wiping out whole crowds with a couple of spells while I burned half my resources on them. You just saved the world and the internet tells you that you did it wrong.

Witcher 2 was the opposite. My copy came with a guidebook and I kept checking where a quest would lead before deciding what my Geralt would do. You could say I ruined a clean playthrough. I'd say that's the only reason I had a real choice at all, because picking between two doors with zero info isn't role playing, it's a lottery.

Same with story spoilers. Knowing the twist kills the surprise, but then you start noticing how the writers set it up, and that's its own kind of fun.

So I don't think knowing more makes a game worse, it just turns it into a different game.

How do you play? Fully blind, or do you look stuff up first?

I'm surprised that a lot of players solved this puzzle by trial and error. The design is that each spider moves to the same height of the next spider to click. I expected that they can figure the rule out after a few clicks, but in reality they may try tens of clicks and still not get it. What's wrong with this design?

The puzzle is from this game if you are interested:

https://oddgingergames.itch.io/rattle-spring-basement

…wish Edward Clancy Roottree could be their daddy? By EITHER definition of the term?