Platform
Puzzle
boxing
Reddit
How Animal Well and Lorelei and the Laser Eyes fostered puzzle-solving communities
If you’re a puzzle game fan, you’ve had one heck of a month. Within a span of two weeks, two of 2024’s best puzzle games — or, simply, best games — were released with Big Mode’s Animal Well and Simogo’s Lorelei and the Laser Eyes. The puzzles couldn’t look or play more differently: Animal Well is a platformer that prioritizes environmental puzzles, somewhat like a Metroidvania, while Lorelei and the Laser Eyes is a puzzle box disguised as a walking simulator, pulling together logic, math, physics, and language puzzles. And yet, both games are labyrinthian mazes with tons of mysteries and secrets; the way Animal Well gates off puzzles until you find a very specific item mirrors the way Lorelei and the Laser Eyes withholds a key piece of information until you’ve opened the right book or unlocked the correct door. For games that look nothing alike, the act of playing them — and solving their most mysterious puzzles — feels undeniably similar.