Stephen's Sausage Roll

i had a lovely time with this game :) the puzzles are excellently crafted and i personally never felt that a solution was absurd and frustrating to realize. before getting into any more depth, id recommend this game for people who enjoy figuring out complex sokoban and love the feeling when everything just clicks and a solution comes into view. on the other hand i would probably stray from it if you: - dont enjoy sitting with a puzzle for potentially several days - prefer to leave the trickiest puzzles for last (the game's world system works such that you need to complete every single puzzle in one to advance to the next. while i really didnt mind this, i know that some people might be put off by the game softly forcing their hand in this way) - prefer rules in puzzles to be explicitly spelled out rather than having to figure them out yourself - havent played any sokoban before/are generally new to puzzle games (though this is probably the least important point. if you like diving into something new and are more partial to feeling wonder & excitement over Unfamiliar Dread then by all means pick it up ^^) ill go over the game's mechanics and ending in detail below. if the premise sounds interesting i highly recommend picking it up and playing as blind as possible :D the price is steep but it goes on sale often (though after playing id say that the experience can well be worth its normal price too) [spoiler]the description calls it a "simple" puzzle game, and i find that a wonderfully fitting word to use. while the puzzle design gets really involved, with some of the later puzzles being so expansive and multi-fauceted that it can initially feel overwhelming, the core of the game always stays the same. you can move, undo, and reset. at no point do you gain new tools or abilities. but from start to finish the entire game is filled with moments where new ideas are introduced. your toolkit remains the exact same, but the level design evolves to allow you to utilize more and more of it. it's an incredibly satisfying system and one that's delightful to experience blind. there were many points where i thought "there's no way something new suprirses me now" - and then it did! [/spoiler] [spoiler]theres of course the great tower, which is kind of an infamous stage for how confusing it is at first glance. after a fairly smooth starting complexity curve you suddenly see a stage which simultaneously introduces a lot of new concepts, and its really scary! i think a players reaction to this stage in specific will also reflect how they fare with the puzzles for the rest of the game. someone who feels dicouraged and unwilling to interact with the puzzle because of its overwhelming appearance might not find the path ahead particularly exciting or satisfying. as for me though, after the initial shock passed, i mostly felt a great intrigue and desire to figure everything out, bit by bit. to figure out how to solve this behemoth. and it felt awesome when i did! while i dont think any stage radiates that same sheer Power when you first see it, i think in pretty much every world theres a single standout stage which is intentionally starkly trickier than the rest; theyre like these tests that appear every so often and check if the player has the right approach to keep going. very rarely are any puzzle elements strewn around randomly - respecting that and trying to come up with how to make the most of them makes the whole game far more enjoyable. seeing the tower, feeling the tower, solving the tower, and learning from the tower were some of the most memorable moments i had while playing :)[/spoiler] [spoiler]one more stage that drilled itself into my head was dead end. i dont have nearly as much to say about it aside from it probably being my absolute favorite execution of how SSR introduces new mechanics. i always loved seemingly impossible puzzles that are not just for show, but are entierly solvable within the game's ruleset. fishing up the grill will remain in my heart forever as one of the coolest things this game does -w-[/spoiler] [spoiler]later on there's the apex which i just rly enjoyed figuring out. i loved how it effectively a few smaller puzzles chained together, and noticing that i have to get the ladder block on stephens head to be able to reach the end felt great[/spoiler] [spoiler]god pillar was really cool visually and so atmospheric. part of me wishes it was a harder puzzle, since the solution i felt was fairly trivial, just heavier on execution. it is a really sick and memorable solution though, and the visual of climbing to the game's highest point with a tower constructed yourself is awesome. i also really enjoyed the final walk back to cook all the leftover sausages, especially since it gives you a reason to view all the story text in one go with basically no interruptions. on which note… the story is curious! i was definitely at least a bit invested to learn more about it as i went thru the game. the themes of Flood, Knowledge and Cycle (with the ending itself) are also v interesting. it feels like a collection of ideas that ill be thinking about more :3 i also appreciate how the story is both easily accessible and easily skippable; anyone who's in it for the puzzles is never forced to interact with it. im very glad i got through it from start to end [/spoiler]

Stephen sent me a cool little coin so after 10 years I'm finally writing a positive review. Thanks Stephen!

just fell asleep playing this game. I will complete it and i WONT look up how!!!