Social Caterpillar

A really lovely weird little gem of a puzzle game with a narrative told through light touches that still hits pretty hard, for me at least. More like this please!

Social Caterpillar is a fascinating game. The player plays as an introvert, in a story largely working with implication rather than direct explanation (done quite effectively). Solve puzzles, increase your social battery, and become able to progress farther from your home (and isn't that how being an introvert can feel). The main path of the game is pretty easy, starting with simple puzzles, and eventually making it to moderately complicated ones. The vast majority of the puzzles are made up of giving you three choices that you have to pick from based on what you're shown (in ways that tend to match well with the theming of what the protagonist is trying to do at the time). The two endings (there's a third, but I haven't gotten it) also feel appropriate, and the game has some dev commentary that can be unlocked that I really enjoyed reading. It's also worth noting that the game is full of layers (plenty of which I've still hardly gone anywhere on, although I expect I'll be poking around at least a little more), with puzzles inside of puzzles inside of puzzles (some real hidden room that requires logic from three hidden puzzles and a hidden room level stuff). Excellent game all around.