Great puzzle games that encourage you to grow as you play. They can offer different levels of difficulty. However, they don’t get in the way of enjoying it. The lower levels prepare you for the higher ones. Filmechanism is one that addresses its challenges well. With the way Chemical Pudding delivers and organizes things, it really encourages a sense of progress.
The concept of Filmechanism is pretty simple. Something I found can help make a puzzle game fun, because it means anyone can pick it up. You follow a cyborg that can record the current state of the world. When the robot, called Rec, collects a battery to power that ability. After recording, you can do it as many times as you can when collecting enough batteries you can restore the world to its current state. However, when you do, you’ll still own things like the batteries or keys that you’ve collected. Your goal is to use this observation and skill to reach the exit in each stage.
Available now, Filmechanism include some background elements. You will need to guide Rec through the areas. There are many jumps. Sometimes even with single use springs! But while precision is countable, the real key is observation. The trick to solving the game’s puzzles is keeping track of when things will happen. None of the jumps required fancy maneuvers. Speed isn’t really an issue. There is no penalty for testing, then resetting. Means a certain amount of pressure is relieved. This makes it more welcoming to newcomers, while still providing attractive prospects for those already familiar with such concepts.
Of course, the actual difficulty options are what really make Filmechanism the kind of puzzle game that anyone can excel at. You get three. They are not defined before entering the game. You don’t have to go to options to toggle everything. Instead, more than 200 puzzles are scattered across worlds with multiple paths. You get the standard Normal difficulty on the bottom route, then the Hard difficulty and Hell above it. All three eventually lead to the stages and the path to the next area. All the first levels will set the stage for the mechanics that you will see in that area. For example, you’ll be introduced to moving blocks, falling platforms, or springs that send you into the air. The difference depends on how taxed they are.
Under normal circumstances, it’s fairly easy to determine when you need to take a photo, even without exploring. Hard and Hell usually yields more than one battery, which means multiple shots. It’s common to use things like switches that require certain platforms as weights in typical ways. In Hard and Hell, reaching that goal isn’t so easy. It’s the most obvious thing in reality. Which, granted, many of this ilk’s puzzle games do. But it’s just Filmechanism It handles concepts quite well. It always teaches you these tricks, even if the player doesn’t realize it. Not to mention you have other difficulties near and in front of you.
It’s accessibility that makes Filmechanism very happy. This is a puzzle game that can challenge you. It will make you think. It’s just handled in such a way that it can feel like there’s a real sense of growth. Just like the base difficulty prepares you for the concepts and ideas in Hard and Hell. That’s what happens in the best kind of puzzle games. It doesn’t immediately enhance the challenge and feels like there’s no connection. There is a constraint there. Plus, the decision to offer all available puzzles, clearly labeled, at once in one world helps encourage people to branch out.
Filmechanism available for Nintendo Switch and PC.
