Patrick's Parabox

截止目前，过半以上的游戏时长在完全挂机。 整个游戏的流程体验于我，像梅雨季烘干的衣服，掺杂着一点洗衣凝珠香氛的味道里满是挥之不去的霉气。 当一个关卡卡住之后，我没有办法顺利劝说自己“先去玩下一个大章”。我会被“此章未完成”困在原地挂机，不断劝说自己“拆解一下关卡逻辑”，以至为了顺利通关去研究“什么是递归”（数学意义上的）。 帕箱给我的“做题感”是我玩过的所有游戏里最重的的。 我姑且可以认为帕箱在每一个大章都引入了一个新的“概念”，每一个小节都是对这个“概念”举一反三的应用。每一个小节，我是说每一个小节，都有自己通关的“标准答案（唯一核心关窍）”。 喜欢在一套设计好的体系里“发散式解谜”的我（比如在野炊王泪的物理引擎里用天马行空的方式解神庙、围观游戏博主用更新奇的方式解神庙），像一只被掏空了内脏固定在毛毡背板上的昆虫一样，被迫收束“如果我可以这样，那我可不可以那样？”的想法，努力变成符合通关评级的“标本”。 每一个小关都是一次验证“我是否对作者的想法无言自明”的默契测试，成功通关的多巴胺无法抵御“我下一节还能猜中作者心意吗？、我能一直这样顺利验证他在想什么吗”的对未知的恐惧。在你点进下一个关卡前你知道作者已经想到了一个“点子“，你要做的就是尝试和他想到同一个“点子”（或者说，解题公式？）（给我的感觉be like：“我心里有个想法但我不告诉你 你猜中了就是我们有默契猜不中那就是我们没缘分”；于是我猜不中很愤怒，猜中了更愤怒） 很多很多次，我都想不到“作者所想”，最后我会挂到实在受不了关闭游戏。 我斗胆奉劝每一个Ne很高的人停止尝试帕箱。（或者如果有Ne很高的人愿意和我分享游戏体验感激不尽？我真的很好奇我不喜欢帕箱是什么性格特征发力了）。（我喜欢可能性，不喜欢确定性，尤其对“唯一正确答案”PTSD） 我的理性在分析，理论上它作为cocoon（我的24年度最佳独游）的灵感启蒙之一，应该是个很好的游戏（它是干净的，我洗过了，有一点点香味，可以穿） 但我的情感在抗拒，为什么它明明是个“好”游戏但我玩起来那么痛苦，需要不断通过播放自己喜欢的音乐覆盖游戏原生bgm、吃喜欢的零食、和喜欢的人们聊天转移注意力来哄自己“接着玩下去吧”（穿上这件衣服我闻起来像个老旧墙皮上的霉斑） “大家好像都很喜欢帕箱、我居然不喜欢帕箱”的愧疚被我用“我要坚持把这个游戏打完”活埋，终于有一天这些情绪以更丑陋的形式重新出现。 帕箱或许对很多很多解谜独游爱好者来说是个好游戏，它机制设计环环相扣、几乎0损耗用“游戏”和“图形”引入了递归的概念，同时又从始至终只用这一个概念创造了三桌满汉全席（364个关卡量大管饱，按108道菜来算三桌甚至摆不下）；设计思路一点不拖泥带水，没有过量文字带来的厚重的说教感，引导十分精巧。但我不喜欢它，我在这个游戏身上体验到了当年被周测月考模拟压的喘不过气来的一次又一次的验证“你到底会不会数学”的痛苦。 所以我认可帕箱是个优秀的游戏，我也不再逼自己喜欢它。 以上。

In the credits, Patrick's Parabox thanks 3 games: Stephen's Sausage Roll, The Witness, and Recursed. Name-dropping, no doubt, to be uttered in the same breath as those classics. With The Witness's boxy learn-through-tinkering level design, Stephen's Sausage Roll's title and acid-trip sokoban, and Recursed's, well, recursion, it resembles all three while never achieving the difficulty, intricacy, or greatness of any of them. But it's good. Arguably, very good. It also has, far and away, the shallowest learning curve I've ever experienced in a puzzle game. Each new mechanism is introduced with multiple simple levels that wordlessly scream: "Use the cool new thing this way! Oh, you want to explore its power? Too bad, I said THIS WAY!" Such hand-holding goes a long way toward explaining how the puzzle count lurches past 300 levels. It admirably explores just about every mechanism that might precipitate from the elevator pitch: "recursive sokoban." (Especially clever is how the game addresses the tricksy concept of infinity.) For most any game, 300+ levels would be overkill, but so many of these are painless procedural primers that the few interesting optional challenge levels in each section are the only ones that take any time or effort. The real joy for me came after the credits. There, the game drops a giant set of true challenge puzzles along with a couple of alternate-universe areas that ask, "What if we had implemented physics like this instead?" At long last, all my puzzle-loving completionist pleasures were piqued. It finally lets the game stop teaching and start showing off. Worth the wait, absolutely, but I'd rather not have waited at all. 7.5/10

Patrick's Parabox is one of the 'big 5' Sokoban puzzle games in our current golden age for brain-melting masterpieces. Those 5, in order of stature on Steam, are: Baba is You (2019) Void Stranger (2023) Patrick's Parabox (2022) Stephen's Sausage Roll (2016) Isles of Sea and Sky (2024) This is the most 'out there' puzzle game I've come across. The most essential thing that Patrick's Parabox does is take a copy of the level you are playing, shrink it down to the size of a single square on the grid, and then place the level itself, inside the level. This creates very strange movement possibilities and the game embraces that weirdness with glee. Inventive, strange, innovative, a continual WTF-machine in the best way. I am, at best, an intermediate puzzle gamer, and I was able to finish this. Patrick's Parabox does two things well. It supports gradual learning as you go along (but without repeating itself in a tedious or hand-holdy way). And it includes a LOT of crazy optional puzzles for the most dedicated fans. I genuinely surprised myself by making it to the credits. For hardcore advanced puzzle gamers, there are extra layers. Great stuff.

怎么说呢，挺有意思的，从不知所以，到恍然大悟，亦或是其中的逻辑，有趣的创新 不同与简单的推箱子，你要揣摩是哪个方块，如何利用地形反推，如何理解里面的关键词与各个关卡的联系 目前玩到克隆关卡，深受震撼，本体与客体之间的关联，让人眼前一亮 非常建议喜欢思考，喜欢逻辑推理的玩家玩意把

Great puzzle game, Patrick is really something else designing those. While it excels in game design, it lacks in art and in what lives in between. I don't enjoy the music, and the art style is quite simplistic. Yes it is a hard concept to grasp (recursion), and that part is beautifully executed / visually explained. However I do miss something to attach me to this world, I find it too objective / stripped down for what could be a piece of art. I'm also not the biggest fan of the world progression being completely streamlined and categorized for you beforehand. There's not much (if anything) for you to discover in between the lines. Everything you see is everything you get. It feels like no reflection or immersion happens here.

好玩，脑洞打开

I enjoyed this game much more than "Baba is You". Maybe it's just because I am dumb. ¯\_( ͡° ͜ʖ ͡°)_/¯

This makes me feel like the smartest and dumbest person alive simultaneously. Curse you Patrick Traynor for successfully haunting my dreams. The Tetris effect is real, so good luck to everyone. Love this game, wouldn't wish it upon my worst enemy.

Fun puzzle game I always love when games do something creative with their "level-breaking" mechanics (f.e. The Talos Principle and taking items outside of levels, Celeste and its wave/hyperdashes, or here - with well-thought paradoxes). Levels with "worlds" inside one another remind me heavily of Cocoon, which is great I highly recommend it to all puzzle enthusiasts - there's 364 levels in total, so you will definitely get your money's worth

I do not recommend myself to play this for 1 hour straight. I feel like a part of me is slowly dying. Still love the game but my oh my did I lost all my will to live after encountering a hard level.