Hard Puzzle 4: The Ballad of Bob and Cheryl

by Ade McT profile

Episode 4 of Hard Puzzle Trilogy
2019
Science Fiction
Inform 7

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Review

3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:
The "Hard Puzzle" anti-game aesthetic adapted to IFComp, October 19, 2019
Related reviews: 2-10 hours

The Hard Puzzle games have always been odd-balls. They tend to be extremely fussy sandboxes with mechanics you can use over and over and whose solutions require enormous leaps of intuition, endless experimentation with absolutely everything, or just dumb luck.

This game honors that legacy by having many, many sandbox commands and requiring some outrageous leaps of intuition. I had solved some of the previous Hard Puzzles by decompiling them, and this game has some good-natured nods to people who 'cheat' at games like that.

This differs from the other Hard Puzzles, though, in that it can be solved piece by piece, instead of an all-at-once lightning bolt thought like the former ones.

I won by cheating in three different ways (including (Spoiler - click to show)'decompiling', the intfiction forums, and decompiling).

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