Taiji

Ok so it does scratch the itch. There's the new-age vibe. There's the inference-based learning. There's the subtle, environmental clues. There's the overall challenge. I wholeheartedly recommend it to the puzzleheads out there. Some caveats: there is a heavy emphasis on spatial logic in Taiji's grid-based puzzles. The procedural brain-twisters of Baba Is You seem a more apt comparison than the more relaxed, observational 'being-there' of The Witness, Obra Dinn, Tunic, or Blue Prince. Taiji is clearly a labor of love -- and I wanna love it too -- but it suffers a bit from lack of polish. Some puzzles lack visual clarity and others (in the late-game) feel joylessly cluttered. There are some really good puzzles, but there are others that feel like they were built at random (i.e. solution-first). The free-roam, 'open-world' ethos isn't particularly well-executed either, which leads to potentially bad pacing, depending on your initial direction of conquest. To be clear, I did enjoy Taiji. Its design approach (no hand-holding), its plethora of puzzles (from intermediate to galaxy-brained), its pixel-art aesthetic (fantastic when its not complicating the puzzles!). But it didn't grip me in the way the best of the genre does.