Recursed

I think this might be one of the smartest games I've ever played, I honestly don't even know where to begin with my praise for this because I could literally type for hours. This is truly something special, and something every puzzle game fan should make time to play. [b]FULL VIDEO - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=50-EKQddGNw[/b]

Is it graphically impressive? No. Does the gamefeel leave something to be desired? Sure. Is it badly in need of an undo button? Absolutely! But this game more than anything I can think of (other than grad school math) gives me the feeling of struggling to wrap your mind around the hopelessly abstract until it really starts to solidify and you find yourself catching glimmers of understanding leaving you saying “damn that was clever, how did I know how to do that?” Because you don’t end up guessing wildly; you have on some deep level (perhaps recursed 20 levels) learned what to do.

My most favourite puzzle game of all time. There is really no other that gets close to the ingenuity of this game.

Rooms hide within rooms Every loop bends what you know Escape defies itself

When I first bought this game, it didn't receive keyboard input correctly. (It later turned out to be my fault -- I hadn't given Steam keyboard permissions.) The only way I could play it was with a PS4 controller, with some bizarre mappings: the jump and throw buttons were across from each other, and pause was mapped to a [i]very[/i] sensitive right trigger. Sometimes, in menus the game would quit itself, and in levels it would rapidly flicker between paused and unpaused. It was [i]immensely[/i] irritating. Despite that, I 100%'d the game, bought it twice, and regularly replay it. It really is that good. If you're only going to play one puzzle game in your life, this is it. It's the pinnacle of puzzle concept and design, and truly mastering it will clarify your thoughts even outside games. The only grievances I have with it are minor UX issues and the slow ramp-up, but I think the visual simplicity heightens immersion and a faster ramp-up would have been impossible to follow.

Very clever puzzles! ... oh wow, **very** clever!