Monday, 26th April 2021

Gorogoa
Game Gorogoa
Released 2017
Developer Buried Signal
Available Apple GOG Steam

Gorogoa is both an innovative puzzle game and Art with a capital A. When playing the game you see a 2x2 grid of up to 4 image tiles, by sliding the image tiles around you change things in the scenes in those image files, enable things to happen. There are a few sequences where you need to perform actions in quick succession but mostly there is no time pressure. Just the pressure of how on Earth do I solve this puzzle and move on?

The artwork by Jason Roberts is beautiful and evocative. Even without the puzzles this would still be an enchanting experience. And there is a massive gallery of artwork to see.

So this is a game that is well worth everyone playing once. My regret about playing Gorogoa is that however is that for me it was just a series of highly artistic puzzles. One could make up a story, with effort one could decide on a tale behind the scenes one sees, but I didn't feel motivated to do so. To me a game or art should be about something, and my sensation of Gorogoa was limited.