The tenth episode of a short series on games I discovered at EGX Rezzed 2018.

There are too many games… to remember. I’d noticed puzzle game Outsider last month and shared the trailer on Twitter with the comment that the trailer was too dark. It was an interesting-looking puzzle game. And then I forgot about it.

I spotted Outsider at Rezzed and the memories came rushing back. Ohhhh, it’s the game with the too dark trailer. Turns out it wasn’t the trailer that was too dark, it was the game. Although to be fair about it, the interactive elements stand out and are completely legible. It’s just the background that seems too murky; the scenery.

You start with a broken robot and must solve puzzles to bring the robot online. What was surprising was exactly the thing that was surprising about the trailer: Outsider doesn’t keep iterating on a particular puzzle mechanic until it’s exhausted but rather keeps throwing out new types of puzzle. I was told that in the full game, each puzzle template would be explored more thoroughly but once you’d finished the set, that type of puzzle would not be seen again.

This structure makes it more like Myst, where each challenge is unique, rather than Cosmic Express or Stephen’s Sausage Roll. It follows that this is a relatively expensive game to develop, as each new puzzle type requires its own set of graphics and animations.

Very interested to see where this one goes. Outsider is being developed by small Portuguese studio Once A Bird. Launch date currently unknown.

Interested in other games I’ve dabbled with? Check out the series index!

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