Gorogoa is one of the best puzzle games

dear polygon,

I have been in a chronic phase of illness for many years that turned my life upside down in the prime of my young adulthood. I’m good at dealing with it, but I can’t deny how genuinely isolating and frankly boring it’s forced my life to be.

But no matter how many years pass and how many plans and hobbies I have to give up, living in a video game narrative for a little while never gets less enjoyable. When I’m too averse to get involved with hardcore gamer gameplay, I love having the door open to a short little indie game dedicated to using the medium in interesting ways to create its own unique story to tell (many of which I have discovered through Polygon, I suspect many of you will share my taste in this case).

I worry how many incredible video game stories are being overlooked out there that find innovative ways to convey beautiful, moving narratives and yet remain under the radar for all but a select few. If anyone knows anything about this kind of hidden gem, it’s Polygon Dot Com.

I suppose I just want to know which games left great narrative impact on you! Which games have delivered characters and storylines that made you invest enormously in a very different world, if only for a short time? It’s nice to live in someone else’s story when there’s not much going on in your own.

Thank you Polygon and as we all like to say keep playing in the free world.

-Sam

Hello Sam!

Thank you for sharing your story with us. Chronic illness is tough—really, really tough. There was a time in my life when I was very ill and was stuck at home for six months to a year. It’s so isolating and I totally understand how video games help me feel more connected.

When I was recovering from heart disease, I got really really invests in League of Legends Esports helped me feel part of a community. It wasn’t something I really shared with people in my day-to-day life, but just getting to know these players and playing this brilliantly complex game through competitive matches still made me feel like I was involved in something exciting, even when I had to stay on bed rest .

Image: Jason Roberts/Annapurna Interactive

When I read your letter from Dear Polygon, one game immediately came to mind: Jason Roberts and Annapurna Interactive Gorogoa. I played it on PC but I think it would be pretty good on mobile too. It’s a puzzle game that takes place on a two-by-two grid, where each square (sometimes all four, sometimes fewer) contains interactive images. You solve the puzzles by clicking on elements in each of these pictures or by moving them to another place in the grid. Sometimes this means connecting these illustrated squares into a coherent image, or laying them on top of one another – usually a window or door – to combine them. As you “solve” each step of the puzzle, an animation is triggered that advances the game.

I think it can be difficult to explain how this actually works, so here are a few examples: There are two illustrated tiles in this grid, one depicting an apple tree and the other depicting a bowl. Move each of these squares so that the peel is under the apple that is about to fall from the tree. The apple falls from one picture to another and the story progresses. Similarly, another puzzle involves creating a path for a ball to roll off a shelf and into another world. It’s much easier to see how this works via the trailer:

Gorogoa is short and sweet, at about two to three hours. But through these individual puzzles, it evolves into a story about a boy and a monster that explores themes of destruction and rebirth. It came out on iOS, PC, and Nintendo Switch in 2017, but has also been available on PlayStation, Xbox, and Android since 2018 – so you have lots of options as to where to find it. I’d love to hear what you think; The story is even more remarkable because it is told entirely without words. It amazes me how invested I can be in a game where I don’t even know the main character’s name.

I’ve never played anything like this before Gorogoa, and I still think about it a lot, even after all these years. I hope it’s a world that you can also see yourself in and connect with.