Humanity Review – Becoming A People Person

It’s a common feeling in many genres of video games, whether it be action games where you can control your character or simulators. Humanity gives me the opportunity to roleplay a God in surprising and new ways. This unique puzzle-solving style uses commands and directional signs to lead thousands of tiny people towards an objective. Humanity’s 100+ stages build on the core puzzle system in a variety of exciting ways. It pushes me to my limits while telling an emotional story about human behavior. 

It is easy to see why Humanity stands out. The game’s minimalistic visual style focuses on the 3D area. Soft and beautiful backgrounds highlight my actions, as I lead colorful hoards of people across different challenges. The first thing I do is give a simple direction. When the humans cross it and follow it, I put it down on the floor. My journey through Humanity introduces me to plenty more commands, like ones to pause actions completely, jump, and use lightsaber-like weapons and guns to take out the enemy – The Others – that sometimes work to stop my progress. These new commands keep Humanity’s puzzles feeling fresh, and it was especially interesting to see how developer Tha Ltd used challenges to change my perception of how a command can be used.

Humanity was never able to challenge me as much, even though I spent more than 30 minute on some of the toughest trials. Humanity’s puzzle rules are always changing, and each time I question its capability to make the game more difficult, it introduces a new twist. And each time, I go from, “There’s just no way I can figure this out,” to feeling omnipotent 30 minutes later. 

It may seem like a relaxing game, and it can be, but Humanity has a lot of challenges. That is, if you don’t want to use Humanity’s built-in solution videos. However, these don’t show you how to pick up the optional Goldy humans in each level, which unlock cosmetic changes for your humans and details like in-depth stats about your efforts.

Tha Ltd clearly wants its players, and all their viewers to be able to appreciate the stories that are told in these videos. Humanity was published by Enhance, the Tetris Effect developer. Humanity provides more than satisfying puzzles. It serves up puzzles with a surprisingly human narrative about our nature as a society, how we can work together to progress, and how we’re all more connected than not. It’s sweet and simple but effective, especially after guiding thousands of humans across challenges toward the light. 

Humanity can be a drag at times, even with the solution videos. Because some puzzles have solutions that take minutes to play out as lines of humans walk in real-time toward the end, Humanity allows you to speed up what’s happening on screen by pressing R2. This doubles the speed, but when a solution takes minutes to achieve, I’m still waiting a while. As I would have to restart the puzzles to find out if I could fix it with a different command, this meant I had to wait for a while.  

With trial restarts, you can keep your commands from the previous attempt, which helps dampen this issue, but waiting through all of your other commands to see if a new one at the very end solves the puzzle gets boring; in the back third of the game, I often grabbed my phone while holding R2, waiting to see if a new command works. The satisfaction that I get from solving a problem always outweighs the frustrations. 

Humanity features a level creator and a way to try out other players’ creations. While these seem like worthwhile efforts to continue the puzzle fun, I’m not creative enough to make my own. And after playing through Tha Ltd’s handcrafted levels in the story, I am well satisfied – enough that I don’t have the urge to dive too deep into someone else’s puzzles. Level creation could provide longer lasting fun for someone who wants to play this game. 

The human condition strikes the perfect balance of challenging me every step of the way and making me feel like I am the hero its story portrays me as. It’s an imaginative experience that provides a rush I imagine computer programmers feel when dozens of commands and lines of code finally work together to create a desired outcome. The puzzles are wrapped up in an elegant package. From the minimalist graphics to the excellent electronic beats, it’s a stunning experience. And best of all, these elements work together to emphasize a simple but effective message about what it means to be human and why life’s most intricate puzzles are easiest to solve when we work together.