Gorogoa is one of the best puzzle games

Dear Polygon

I’m many years into a period of chronic illness, which threw my life off the rails right in the prime of my young adulthood. I’ve got good at managing it, but I can’t deny how truly isolating, and quite honestly boring it’s forced my life to become.

But no matter how many years go by, and how many plans and hobbies I’m forced to drop, it never becomes any less of a treat to live in a video game narrative for a little while. When I’m too out-of-it to engage with some Hardcore Gamer Gameplay, I love having the door open for a short little indie game that is devoted to using the medium in interesting ways to tell its own unique story (many of which I’ve discovered through Polygon, I suspect lots of you share my taste on this one).

There are so many great video game stories that go untold. I worry about how they get lost. If anyone knows about this kind of hidden gem, it’s Polygon Dot Com.

Let me just say that I want to find out which games have had a huge impact on the narratives of your life. Which games had characters or plotlines that made you feel like you were part of another world for just a few minutes? It’s nice to live in someone else’s story when there isn’t much going on in your own anymore.

Thanks Polygon, and as we all love to say, keep on gamin’ in the free world.

—Sam

Hi, Sam!

Thanks for sharing your journey with us. Chronic illness is hard — really, really hard. There’s been a period of time in my life where I’ve been very sick, and stuck at home for six months to a year. It’s so isolating, and I can absolutely relate to the ways video games help me feel more connected.

After undergoing heart surgery, I found it difficult to find the right people for me. Really?Invested in League of LegendsIt made me feel connected to a group through esports. It wasn’t something I actually shared with people in my day-to-day life, but just getting to know these players and this brilliant, complex game through competitive matches still made me feel like I was involved in something exciting, even when I had to be on bedrest.

Image: Jason Roberts/Annapurna Interactive

When I read your Dear Polygon letter, one game immediately came to mind: Jason Roberts and publisher Annapurna Interactive’s Gorogoa. I played it on PC, but I think it’d be pretty neat on mobile, too. It’s a puzzle game that takes place in a two-by-two grid where each square (sometimes all four, sometimes fewer) contains interactive images. The puzzles can be solved by moving the pieces to another location on the grid or clicking on any element in these images. Sometimes this means connecting these illustrated squares into one contiguous image, or layering one on top of another — usually a window or a doorway — to combine them. When you’ve “solved” each step of the puzzle, it triggers an animation, moving the game forward.

This is a complicated system, I find it difficult to describe in practice. Here are some examples. The grid has two illustrated tiles. One depicts an apple tree while the other shows a bowl. Each square should be moved so that the bowl can be placed underneath the fallen apple. You will see the apple drop into each image, and your story will progress. A different puzzle requires you to make a way for the ball of your choice to bounce off a table and enter another dimension. It’s much easier to see how this works via the trailer:

GorogoaIt takes around 2 to 3 hours. Through these puzzles it leads to a tale about a boy, a monster and explores themes of destruction, and rebirth. It came out on iOS, PC, and Nintendo Switch in 2017, but it’s also available on PlayStation, Xbox, and Android as of 2018 — so you’ve got a lot of options on where to find it. I’d love to hear what you think; the story is even more remarkable for being told entirely without words. It fascinates me how I can be so invested in a game where I don’t even know the main character’s name.

I’ve never played anything like GorogoaIt was a big part of my childhood, something I continue to think about even now, many years later. I hope it’s a world you’re also able to fall into and connect with.