Strange Jigsaws

Incredible game

FLEB wasn’t kidding. Those jigsaws WERE strange. Overall a very enjoyable way to spend a couple hours; similar vibes to FLEB's other project 20 Small Mazes, but the ideas that Strange Jigsaws explores go into a lot more mechanical depth. Many of the puzzles are very enjoyable and experiment with different delivery methods while never straying too far from the core concept; not to spoil anything, but things get weird pretty much immediately and that weirdness accelerates rapidly as you open the first door. You’ll probably want to have an image editor ready to help deal with a few of the earlier puzzles unless you can visualize them clearly, specifically [spoiler]the last Impossible Lock and the rope puzzle[/spoiler]. Also, get a pencil and paper ready; you’ll need to take notes to plan things out as you go further. You'll thank me later. One thing I’ll note is that the tone of Strange Jigsaws is a lot darker than expected, to the point of being a bit depressing at times while lumping on some existential dread as a treat. Granted, the game is a lot better for it — you’ll see — but if it’s not something you’re into it’s going to be difficult to ignore. There are also a couple puzzles whose logic can be a bit obtuse at first, but everything more or less makes sense in the end with a steady stream of “a-ha” moments that don’t let up throughout the game’s two to three hour runtime, with at most one or two exceptions. In particular (spoilers for the second act), [spoiler]I still don’t fully understand the “hungry shark” puzzle even after completing it without hints and looking over the intended process[/spoiler]. …also, the sokoban puzzle can bite me. That was the one puzzle I couldn’t stand and ended up just looking up a walkthrough for. I already get headaches with sokoban, [spoiler]and forcing me to play a irritating version of it with a deliberately messy control scheme; on an eye-strain background where my frustration was the butt of the joke wasn’t funny[/spoiler]. But it’s more or less the only real sour spot on an already very solid puzzle game that’s well worth the five bucks.