Bean and Nothingness
RBOR Games · 2021 · Puzzle, Difficult, Turn-Based, Logic, Level Editor
PC
Very Positive99% · 221
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About Bean and Nothingness
Bean and Nothingness is a challenging, turn-based puzzle game in which you turn beans into monsters to help you -- but then these same monsters will get in your way.
Each puzzle has a set of recipes -- instructions for how to create various monsters. In the puzzle below, the books in the lower-left show that you can create the orange dinosaur-looking monster (a "roller") by combining a red and yellow bean, or the yellow circle-looking monster (a "bomb") by combining two green beans.
Putting the right combination of beans on a grassy tile and shooting it with your magic wand will create a monster. These monsters can help you -- for instance, both the roller and the bomb are capable of destroying the cracked blocks between you and the goal tile in the puzzle above. But these monsters can also get in your way -- the roller will roll at you if it sees you, and if it catches you, you'll die! Likewise, getting caught in the bomb's explosion kills you.
As you progress in the game, you'll meet new monsters (and other mechanics); for each monster, you'll have to learn how it behaves in some easy puzzles, and then move on to more difficult puzzles, where you'll have to combine the mechanics you've learned in new ways.
Expect puzzles that:
Bean and Nothingness is a long game, with over 180 puzzles, with difficulties from "elementary" to "extremely challenging". New puzzles open up quickly, so you should never be stuck on only a few puzzles with nothing new to try.
Additional Features
Each puzzle has a set of recipes -- instructions for how to create various monsters. In the puzzle below, the books in the lower-left show that you can create the orange dinosaur-looking monster (a "roller") by combining a red and yellow bean, or the yellow circle-looking monster (a "bomb") by combining two green beans.
Putting the right combination of beans on a grassy tile and shooting it with your magic wand will create a monster. These monsters can help you -- for instance, both the roller and the bomb are capable of destroying the cracked blocks between you and the goal tile in the puzzle above. But these monsters can also get in your way -- the roller will roll at you if it sees you, and if it catches you, you'll die! Likewise, getting caught in the bomb's explosion kills you.
As you progress in the game, you'll meet new monsters (and other mechanics); for each monster, you'll have to learn how it behaves in some easy puzzles, and then move on to more difficult puzzles, where you'll have to combine the mechanics you've learned in new ways.
Expect puzzles that:
- Challenge you to come up with creative ideas
- Require you to make efficient use of resources
- Test your ability to manage "tactics"-like, grid-based interactions
Bean and Nothingness is a long game, with over 180 puzzles, with difficulties from "elementary" to "extremely challenging". New puzzles open up quickly, so you should never be stuck on only a few puzzles with nothing new to try.
Additional Features
- A colorblind-friendly mode gives the beans distinct shapes.
- Controller is supported, although the game is best experienced on keyboard.
- Controls are customizable.
What Steam players say
Recent verbatim reviews from Steam — separate from playze.io community reviews below.
I have reached the good ending of bean and nothingness. This is a unique puzzler that derives complexity from numerous monsters. Mechanically speaking, each monster is quite complex, and so it incentivizes the player to experiment to learn about the intricacies of how each one operates. However, only some of the levels have the space and relevant resources to allow such experimentation. Each level is given a difficulty rating from 1 to 5. To me, the sweetspot for difficulty are the 1's, 2's, and 3's. 4's and 5's can be enjoyable as well, but also can take multiple hours to work through. Some of them require rather specific timing setups (at least for my solution) in order to function, which is not satisfying for me. That brings me to kuroyama's rainbow, a particular level that I found to be a standout level. I wish there were more levels like this one, where you are given a system and tasked to break it in whatever way you like. The goal-state of every single level is extremely straight forward. Just move onto the goal tile. But going back just one or two steps leads to the roadblocks in every puzzle. For example: the goal tile is behind a block that can be destroyed by a certain …2 found this helpful
Almost all of my time thinking through the puzzles was spent thinking through the broad, conceptual ideas. Much more "how can this even be possible?" and much less "what if I move this thing one square to the left?" Even when puzzles took me 30+ minutes to solve, I felt like I was making progress the whole time, as I performed little experiments to test interactions between creatures, slowly building up my knowledge base until the solution glided into view. The nakedly autobiographical story about a trapped group of academics suggests the devs created this kind of experience with full intention, so I sincerely hope they continue their careers as designers.1 found this helpful
A very high quality and thought provoking puzzler.
Putting this one on hold for now due to the puzzle difficulty being a bit much sometimes. Still recommending since, overall, the puzzles are really well designed. My only real gripe being some of them being a little "over designed" - meaning you understand the main trick to solve the puzzle but the developers added walls/subtracted spaces so that there's only one exact solution.
A cozy and hard-as-balls puzzle game that drew me into the genre. Bean and nothingness is about exploring, experimenting, thinking really hard, and conquering. Scarcely have I had such a strong "A-ha!" sensation as when playing this game, but you really have to work for it. It's like if maths was beans.
I finished 3 island, and I think I have enough for now and got way more than my monies worth the game is difficult, and even the 'easy' puzzle takes a while to solve. but the pay off is always worth it you really do feel the mental strain after solving the puzzle, it feel more suited to steam deck style where I can try a few ideas on the puzzle for 10mins and come back later if I fail and rinse and repeat
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