An Architect's Adventure

A very well-made puzzle game that a fan of Stephens Sausage Roll will appreciate. Although, comparing the two, I still think the mechanism discovery in Stephens Sausage Roll is more interesting. Still, this game has its own character and each puzzle is very well designed and no filler. The only negative point I can think of is that some of the "gain insight" level are too obvious and I feel almost like cheating when checking these hints while some of them are too obscure and not so helpful. Anyway, just nitpicking, highly recommended anyway!

I actually enjoyed my time with An Architect's Adventure, but that's because I explicitly wanted to improve my ability to visualize complex structures, and I definitely got some good practice in this regard. This game is all about imagining up 3D structures of blocks that can be pushed around to solve puzzles, typically by bridging across gaps. From the Steam store page, it is clearly trying to be a Stephen's Sausage Roll-like, but unfortunately, like many of the other sausage-likes out there, it falls quite short. None of the mechanics are super stand out, and they don't feel like they are explored to their absolute maximum the same way as in SSR. So, I can only recommend to those who have run out of other great puzzle games to play, or to those who want to improve their ability to imagine complex shapes. There are actually quite a few of good things about this game: Like Bean and Nothingness, the goal-state of each level is extremely simple: move the character onto the space marked with an X. The game's description says "Refuse complex sokoban shuffles", which is definitely true. A game that looks like this could have been sokoban hell but in fact all the levels are hyper-focused and don't involve a ton of fiddly steps to solve once you understand what the puzzle wants you to do. It has the Gain Insight hint system adopted from Can of Wormholes. I took a peek at the insight levels when I thought up of multiple ways to construct a solution but wasn't sure which one was actually possible. Sometimes the Insight levels would show me something entirely novel, instantly spoiling the level for me, but more often than not, there is still a decent amount of work to do even after using the insight levels. There are meta-puzzles too, which are quite fun. Very importantly, 100%'ing the game does not overstay it's welcome.

An Architect's Adventure is a visually simple, but deceptively difficult puzzle game with Sokoban rules. You move around blocks which get glued together when you touch another block, forming shapes. This, combined with some other rules, leads to 100+ difficult puzzles, though many of which are optional. There are even optional trophies in the overworld which you can try to reach by combining the blocks which appear after solving puzzles in the individual levels. That way, you can also reach other puzzle areas. If you make a mistake, it's easy to undo and some levels also have an optional insight level which tells you (in a roundabout way) how you might be able to solve the puzzle. The soundtrack is repetitive, but it's chill enough that it's not a bother. The game introduces several different mechanics and stays very challenging. I didn't solve all the puzzles as I'm not smart enough, but I did make it to the ending at least, which was a pretty good challenge. If you don't mind the simple visuals and enjoy difficult puzzle games with some optional content, An Architect's Adventure is a good addition to the collection!