itch.io

OH MY GOD HE WAS A GINGERBREAD MAN!!!!!!! i didn't even notice that one, wonderful observation

amazing, amazing, amazing puzzle. i have a knack for solving this kind of tricky lateral thinking puzzle far quicker than intended so the real test of a puzzle is whether it holds up even when that is the case. i cracked what was going on by puzzle five — i had solved the "normal" way through the first three, at puzzle four i saw all the month names and chunked the letter space up by month but was still confused at the may/yam interaction. this still gave me the click i needed for all the numbers in the bottom of each page (including the bottom right), so i went back to three and... couldn't figure it since i was looking at my previous naive solution and assuming those words were correct. i went onto five and the numbers really made it obvious that in some cases, there are weird diagonal connections. after solving it i went back to three and saw question mark and from there everything just broke open, i looked back at one and groaned seeing the rules and realizing what they meant. at this point the backwards words on the right side clicked and my last bit of confusion with the numbers at the bottom of the page resolved.

so, having discovered the logic of the whole book far earlier than intended, was the book a very rote solve? absolutely not, oh my god.  i loved figuring the theme for 1 and 2,  i particularly love the misdirect for 2 and the slow realization that it's zodiac animals and not just the random matching words we'd figured out, i loved that we had to re-populate the inkblots in 3 and that we used that sneaky little one i was wondering about at the bottom of the crossword, i was tickled that three became eight in 5, i LOVED the trick with the corners in 1, i had a great time using 11 to actually figure out the theme for one, which had still stumped me, as well as figuring out leftovers for 12 before even seeing 0! oh yes, and who can forget zodiac/zodiac??? i laughed out loud upon picking up on that one. realizing that parts of our metapuzzle were backwards was delightful, and i was grinning from cheek to cheek upon realizing that the final phrase is both in the gaps and as a contiguous region that we have to circle. this is EXACTLY the way a good metapuzzle should collapse in on itself at the end of a sequence.

good god. this was an incredible thing to play. you really nail the way that a puzzle is supposed to smoothly and cleverly twist and turn both on the macro level and the micro level. i'm so thrilled with every second that i spent on this!

(admittedly, 7-10 were straightforward given much of the above, but it was fun observing the way that the book tutorialized for people who hadn't yet figured the mechanics out)

extremely cute, absolutely could see this developing into something really special. loved the idea of bookmarks/houses building mechanics into the pages, now i'm going to be wondering how that could be used in an expanded way... clever secret, by the way

really excellent and tons of fun. not a single bad puzzle in here and many great ones. rot13 for spoilers:

v ernyyl ybirq gur nohaqnapr bs zrgnchmmyrf, nyjnlf orra zl snibevgr guvat va n tnzr. hasbeghangryl v svtherq bhg ribxr orsber v unq qbar nyzbfg nal bs gur nccraqvk chmmyrf whfg orpnhfr v'q fbyirq gur znc chmmyr sbe sybbe 1 irel dhvpxyl jura v jnf ybbxvat pybfryl ng gur znc, juvpu yrq gb zr fcraqvat n ohapu bs gvzr cynlvat jvgu sybbe 2'f znc naq ernyvmvat gung genpvat gur cngu sebz sybbe gb sybbe tnir lbh yrggref. sebz gurer ribxr vf rkgerzryl dhvpx gb erirny.

gur ynpx bs nal fbeg bs "pvcuref" vf dhvgr avpr ohg va pnfrf yvxr guvf, vg znxrf zr jbaqre vs fbzr fbeg bs pvcure jbhyq or zber nccebcevngr va gur yngr tnzr? fbzrguvat gung lbh pbafgehpg hfvat cvrprf lbh trg qhevat gur tnzr, fvzvyne gb jung lbh qvq jvgu hfvat gur obkrf ng gur raq gb thvqr cynlref gb ernyvmr gur zrgnf rkvfg. naljnlf, pna'g ernyyl avgcvpx zhpu, guvf jnf n jbaqreshy naq serr rkcrevrapr. gunax lbh sbe znxvat guvf!

Excellently short & sweet (beat in 39 min 31s) — like a much better streamlined version of dodecadragons. Visual design was great, would love to see something like this aesthetic in a longer incremental piece.

Incidentally, on Mac this worked great in the browser but the standalone app freezes every ~3 minutes.