Gorogoa

Sometimes, creativity is all that’s needed in order to make a game worth playing, even if the underlying concept is quite simple and mundane. Artistic vision helps a lot as well, because a bit of art can go a long way when it comes to providing the players with a good time. Hence, large studios and expensive tools are not always required in order to produce something special.

Gorogoa is a puzzle game in which your purpose is to help a boy gather some apples, although it’s a bit more complicated than just picking them from a tree in the garden. Not only that, but the boy’s preferred method of transportation happens to be imagination, so getting from one place to the other usually requires a lot of creativity and ingenuity.

As such, the game presents you with four different tiles, each one of which holds an image of sorts. The idea is to help the boy travel from one location to the other, by overlapping the tiles in such a way as to make it look like they belong together. Hence, he can open a door to his bedroom and step into the outskirts of the city, or find himself in a tall tower somewhere.

The interface and the controls are quite simple and intuitive, while the actual riddles you have to solve might take a bit of tinkering to get right. Sometimes, each image holds several points of interest that can be enlarged, which means that you might have to use it multiple times. In any case, things are not as obvious as you might think, although they’re not overly complicated either.

Naturally, a lot of work went into the imagery you get to admire, even if the actual drawings are a tad too small to fully appreciate them. The surreal environments and the interesting frames create quite the pleasant atmosphere, as long as you let them take you  away with them. Soothing music helps with the mood as well, making the journey that much more fascinating.

All things considered, Gorogoa is not too much of a video game, because it doesn’t feature too much interaction. However, if you want to put your mind to work a little and see some interesting ideas while you’re at it, this may very well be a good choice.