Locktale

After greatly enjoying Message from Deep Space, my mind was hungry for more text-based puzzle games, then Locktale released. Locktale is a cryptography puzzle game, in which each level involves decoding a message. The messages eventually come together to make up a complete story. Decryption involves different ciphers, the game presents each with clear rules and enough hints to nudge you in the right direction, but it never outright spoils the answer for you. Later levels involve more complex encryption methods and even combinations of different ciphers used in sequence. I'll admit I enjoyed most of the levels, while others put me in my place, but I never really felt like I couldn't progress. Even in the more elaborate puzzles, you can deduce a word here and there and piece the message from there. I didn't do this often as I enjoyed practicing most of the ciphers (pen & paper gang). I found the game well worth the asking price during the launch sale, but I understand not everyone is looking for mental effort as a definition of fun, that said, I am of the opinion this game was both a healthy and very rewarding mental exercise, and if you're my kind of weird, you might think the sa…

I love it. Just the perfect amount of difficulty and cute story to keep me playing. The controls on steamdeck were a little funky so had to change it but otherwise awesome game!!!

Very creative game, with support for french and english. Both give different experience. Relaxing, with some difficulty spike if you want to play without hints, Would recommend, especially considering the price

This game is fun up until level 15. I had been playing with friends and one joked that "If you beat this on minimal hints you get a call from the CIA" Stylistically, this game is beautiful When the hints are good, the game is fun. But that's really it. I picked this game up as a way to learn interesting ciphers through breaking them/making them. This game required me to know what a dvorak keyboard was. Even when dropping down to detailed hints, there wasn't any real indication that that's what I was supposed to do. And my biggest issue, out of all things, is the Mixed Alphabet cipher in Level 15. The dev has so many words they could choose, why would they choose a word with double letters in it? Why would they have a key icon pointing to the Atbash cipher, one they already reused in a previous level, when trying to get me to use a specific word. From a cryptography stand point, this game is solid, you won't get the answers unless you know exactly what the dev was thinking. From a game design stand point, this sucks.

I'm only 14 levels into the game but any game that inspires me to add to my GCHQ appendices is a game worth leaving a positive review! Great for anyone who wants a patient puzzle to get stuck into. Love the customisation of difficulty too.

I really love the concept, but the formatting of text and bugs makes it hell if you don't understand the cipher already.