Puzzle Depot

The last sokoban game I played was Isles of Sea and Sky, so I'll be comparing this game to IoSaS a lot. The starkest difference between Puzzle Depot and IoSaS (and most other sokoban games) is the amount of plot story going on. There's a bunch of characters with a bunch of dialogue and the like -- it's an entire thing. All of it is appropriately light-hearted and it never takes itself too seriously. And while plots and stories aren't exactly what I'm looking for in my puzzle game experiences, I can tell that a great deal of effort has been put into this aspect of the game. The game's presentation is an advantage over IoSaS, and IoSaS wasn't at all shabby in that regard either. When it comes to playing the sokobongo proper, for most of the game, the individual puzzles themselves are pretty easy compared to the fanciful things you can find in IoSaS, but they do eventually get to a very satisfying level of difficulty. And there's more of them, too. And they have more varied and fun interactions and mechanics, too! But the real meat of the game lies in the fact that the puzzles are not self-contained. You've got consumable resources to manage, alternative solutions and secrets to find, shortcuts to discover, pathings to plan. Puzzle Depot lets you explore one traditional part of sokoban games that IoSaS did not touch upon at all: optimization challenges. You can go for things like minimizing your step count, not taking any damage in a level, finding all the collectables, keeping all of your equipment, or getting a specific number of kills on specific enemies. Since the puzzles aren't self-contained, it becomes more about solving the big picture than about solving the individual puzzles. The step count challenge is the big one, and it’s not just about minimizing the steps of your solutions -- it’s often also about finding some crucial but easily missable shortcut. This might seem daunting at first, and it is! [spoiler]But something not immediately apparent might make it a bit easier.[/spoiler] The challenges can be quite tricky, but also very satisfying to get. You should be prepared for a lot of repetitiveness that comes with trying to find the optimal pathing for whatever challenge you’re going for. And the challenges are often mutually exclusive, so us completionists will be solving the same puzzles over and over and over again. This will become pretty tedious, and I wish there was some way to skip some of the stuff that doesn’t affect the step count, like the boss fights. If you do go for the optimization challenges, you’ll encounter some frustrations. The main one is that you can’t undo past a screen transition -- and you’re gonna want to, a lot. The game unhelpfully autosaves to a single autosave slot after each transition, so you’ll need to save manually. Often. You’re gonna have a rough time if you’re the kind of person who relies on autosaves in video games. Be warned that the game has a real-time element that one might not expect in a sokoban video game. Most often it’s just about quickly stepping off a crumbling floor after stepping on it, but there are exceptions. There will be times when you are required to press a series of correct inputs in quick succession. The real-time element allows for some interesting puzzle designs, and yet, I still feel like it’s out of place. But I guess if action games get to have some puzzle elements in them, puzzle games are allowed to have some action elements too?? The boss fights are the worst offenders. While not particularly difficult, they’re still very annoying, because you can’t undo in them -- and if you try to, you’ll restart the entire fight. You will absolutely try to undo during a boss fight just out of habit, so this is not very well designed. Consider temporarily disabling your undo in the options. There’s also an option to make the boss fight easier, which marginally slows down the speed of the projectiles, but it took me a few fights to even notice the difference. Also the game uses “alternate” to mean “alternative” in the controls rebind menu screen. Figuratively unplayable Version played: 1.0.0

A stunning achievement. Was recommended this on a whim by a friend who knows I like puzzle games and watches a lot of streamers. Absolutely blown away. This is a perfection of form of the micro-vs-macro form of puzzle solving. Beating the game is one thing. Unraveling how to do the various challenges elevates this game into a truly wonderous puzzle experience. I've been voraciously consuming this genre for a long time and this is one of the very best.

[b]8.5/10[/b] Massive sokoban with possibly the best story I’ve seen in a puzzle game where the puzzles are baked into the environment. [b]What is it:[/b] Imagine your job is to push boxes like some people push paper. Day in. Day out. Just pushing boxes around a warehouse with your only highlight being the occasional barrel. A mutant bug-infested apocalyptic disaster would start to sound like a welcome alternative. Well good news, this is the premise of Puzzle Depot. The first game I’ve played that fully embodies its sokoban-genre roots by starting the player off as a warehouse worker (the word ‘sokoban’ comes from the Japanese word 倉庫番 which means “a person in charge of a warehouse”). However, it quickly replaces warehouses with volcanic caverns and boxes with giant curled up pillbugs. While a traditional sokoban tasks players with pushing boxes around to achieve a prescribed win-state, this game shakes the formula up a lot by introducing items that alter how the player interacts with objects, giving RPG vibes. For example, with bare hands the player can push boxes, but pick up a crowbar and now you can break open certain boxes to reveal additional items needed to solve puzzles. Does the solution require you to walk past a giant cockroach that will gobble you up in a second? If only you could figure out how to traverse that puddle of acid to pick up a sewer lid and block the roach’s attacks. At the time of this writing, I have finished the main story but have still not finished the 2 end-game levels that give a little backstory to everything. Also, there has been an announcement of a DLC that explores some random dinosaurs one may stumble upon in the main story. The game packs an insane amount of content for the price. [b]How hard is it:[/b] ★★★★☆. Difficulty is a tricky one with this one. I am more than 100 hrs into this game and recently finished the main story line. If I wasn’t trying to finish all the alternate ways of beating each level, this time would easily be in the 30-40 hrs. The puzzles you need to solve to progress the story ranged in the easy to medium difficulty - but nail-biting on the fun-scale. The true difficulty of this game lies in the alternate options given to beat levels. Each level has multiple ways of completion. Finish the level while holding certain items, or killing a certain number of creatures, etc. All the extra challenges add a little bit of difficulty because they require you to think about how all the separate puzzles interact so that you don’t use an item if not needed or save an item so you can kill that extra bug. But it isn’t until you attempt the Auditor challenge do you really have to lock in and get your mutant ducks in order. Auditor requires you to complete a level within a certain number of literal steps. To do this you have to know exactly which puzzles to solve, which to ignore, which items to use and save and all the shortcuts. To do all this you need to utilize one of the most interesting elements I’ve seen in a puzzle game - your life meter. Hearkening back to those RPG vibes, you have life in this game and die after taking too many hits. This component is redundant if your goal is just to complete a level by any means necessary. Just save a lot and save often. There is always a way to complete a level without taking damage - that's actually an alternate challenge. To find the shortest route for the auditor challenge, however, means you sometimes need to sacrifice your life points to take shortcuts. Remember that puzzle of acid before the sewer lid. There may be a way of bypassing it without getting hurt - but you’d need to walk all the way around an island of rusty cars increasing your steps two-fold. If you have enough life to spare you could eat one heart and walk right through it. Just make sure you have enough life to get to the end of the level. This is the first game I’ve played where your life count is a component to be considered when solving puzzles. I’ve spent more than half my playtime walking around each level, after getting every challenge except auditor, figuring out the shortest possible paths and how I could manage all the items available in the level and my own life, to walk that path. The auditor puzzles are up there with the hardest puzzles I’ve ever done. [b]How long is it:[/b] Excluding the eventual DLC, the base game has 13 levels, 12 have around 20-30 rooms, the majority of which have some kind of isolated puzzle. One playthrough of a level may not require you to visit and solve every room, but to get each challenge, you eventually will. Whichever rooms are not needed to complete a level, obviously you can skip, however you cannot skip an entire level. Don’t worry, like I said, completing a level ranges from easy to medium difficulty. I am 108 hours into the game and still haven’t 100% the last two levels. [b]Level design:[/b] Flippin amazing. Every level has its own theme that is related to the progression of the story. You start off in a warehouse, go to a subway, stop by an underground cavern, and so on. Each level’s puzzles are made up of creatures and environments unique to that theme. But it isn’t arbitrary. Everything has unique interactions that need to be understood because they make up the very puzzles you need to solve! So, for example, in the sewer levels you will meet giant pill bugs that you can push in one direction. However, if you hit them first, they curl up and now you can roll them even further and also use as a flotation device to cross a gooey river. Caverns have mushrooms that you can destroy but some grow back which can impede progress or they glow which attracts bugs that were once in the way. A session in Puzzle Depot is the funnest puzzling you’ll experience because you’ll think deeply about the puzzle but also need to pay attention to the greater environment in the process. This meticulous intermingling of environment and puzzle naturally allows for an engaging story eliminating the awkward nature of shoehorning in one that most puzzle games end up doing. In Puzzle Depot, puzzle, environment and story all rely on each other to exist. [b]Quality:[/b] My only complaint here is the save system. You can save at any time, in any position during the game, which is absolutely necessary for those auditor runs, but everytime you open up the save menu, the game auto loads a new save file. If you want to overwrite a previous save, you need to sit down and type out or manually select that save to overwrite. Also, the game autosaves and undos, which are great right? However, sometimes the way the game manages both can get you softlocked out of progress. The game autosaves when you enter an area but you can’t undo before entries. So I’ll be working on a puzzle to see if I can do it a different way for the auditor, then have an idea that requires me to leave the room. The idea ends up being a dead-end and when I return to the puzzle, it's been solved to a state that makes it unsolvable for the progress I want to make. I can’t undo because I just entered the room. I’m stuck. As long as I have strategically saved beforehand, I can just load it up and try again. But sometimes I didn't, which means loading up a save that causes me to lose a lot more progress than I had wished. Super niche situation that is probably impossible to resolve with code so whatever. The game is amazing. I should probably just erase this complaint. [b]Worth the price:[/b] Yes. 108+ hours for $20. The devs are almost paying me to play. [quote]For more puzzle game reviews, news and everything puzzle-related, follow [url=https://store.steampowered.com/curator/25928931-Puzzle-Lovers/]Puzzle Lovers[/url] and check out our [url=http://steamcommunity.com/groups/puzzlelovers]Steam group[/url].[/quote]

very fun sokoban-like, with bits of drod and even drod rpg included. optimization (for the sickos) and managing resources add more flavor than typical in the genre. super easy recommend for the box pushers, def deserves more love before jonathan blow's boxer takes the spotlight

This is a very intricate and interesting take on the soukoban like game genre with some really fun twists. The animations and pixel art are very charming and really helps punctuate the humour. There's a lot to dig into here outside of the direct puzzle pushing solutions. Intriguing story and a clear project of passion by these developers.

最初に：このゲームには虫が出てきます すげー時間かかったし最終的にYoutubeでガイドを見たけどとりあえず真エンディングまでたぶんクリア。 めちゃくちゃ面白いです。 パズルとして面白いのは当然のこと、ちゃんと探索までしないと各ステージの隠し目標までたどり着けなくて、 しかも隠しエリアにたどり着いたらなんと新しいパズルが出てくる！ 難易度的にも、アイテムや体力のおかげでクリアするだけなら多少無理矢理にでもクリアできるんだけど、ちゃんとやろうと思うとアイテム管理をかなりしっかりやらないといけないのが楽しい。 正直ストーリーそれ自体は定番感が強く、悪くないけどめちゃくちゃよかったというほどでもないかな？という程度だけど、 隠し目標にたどり着いたときの新発見と、カットシーンの演出もあり通常クリアと全く印象が変わります。 クリア後に解放されるステージもバカむずいのでまだしばらく楽しめそう。 今のところ今年買ったゲームで一番面白いっすな。 ----以下少しプレイした時の感想---- これはヤバイゲームを見つけてしまったかもしれん。 ピュアパズラー寄りのタイトルが目立つ倉庫番ジャンルにおいて、体力やアイテムなどいわゆるゲームっぽい要素を取り入れていて、ゲーム部分のギミックがちゃんとパズルに活きている。ストーリーも気になる。 現時点でまだ2面しかクリアしてないけど、ストーリーありのゲームでパズルの難易度が高すぎると詰まってしまうのでノーマルクリアする分には解ける難易度を維持しつつ、やりこみの別解をちゃんと用意しているニオイを感じる……！ちゃんと探索もしないとサブ目標クリアできないっぽい？ できればせめてパズル解いた分だけでもマップを詳細に見せてほしいが、おれが英語わからんだけでもしかしたらちゃんと見れるのかもしれない。

There's a lot of content for this sokoban game. The puzzles are rewarding, and you're bound to keep trying to optimize solutions to get the optional challenges, which, for me, are not really optional if you want to enjoy a game like this. That being said, the Auditor challenge, which is optimizing move count, is much more frustrating than the other challenges, so that one might be left untouched... unless you're into that. The game has a lot of different mechanics which interact with each other quite well, which keeps things fresh for quite a while. Many puzzles have multiple ways to solve them, and you often get items that help you solve puzzles that you may be having issue with, which can help you "cheese" them at the cost of not being able to do some of the optional challenges, which does mean that more casual puzzle gamers should still be able to at least complete the level. A large part of the fun of the optional challenges is figuring out how to get through the rooms or pick up certain objectives without, say, losing health or using/damaging one of your items. My biggest complaint, which is minor and did not affect my enjoyment all that much, is the undo system. While I'm glad that one exists in the first place, it's limited in frustrating ways. While I understand that its implementation is limited in part by real-time mechanics that exist in this game, it's still annoying to not be able to undo more than a certain number of moves, or undo into other rooms. In practice, this means you'll be relying on saves quite a lot to "undo", which is not ideal. The fact that the auto-save only saves to the start of the room is kind of annoying, too. Why not have multiple auto-saves reaching, say, 10 rooms back? But again, this just means that you'll be manually saving and loading a lot, which is only marginally more bothersome than actually undoing. Sure, you'll have to solve some puzzles again, but you just solved them anyways and should remember how to do it again. I guess if you forgot to save in a long time, you'll be irked greatly, but you should only have to learn that lesson once. I think this game is really up there for sokobans, and is a must-try for puzzle gamers.

This game isn't getting the attention it deserves yet. If you like puzzle games, you should check out the demo. I enjoy that the puzzles in a level aren't completely separate, so you can smuggle out items from one puzzle to clear another in a different way. Working on trying to find the optimal solutions and get the various in-game achievements in each level.

A puzzle game with metal gear level of freedom of choice? Amazing concept, great game, deserves much more attention.