N-Step Steve Parts 1 and 2
Finished: ✓Puzzle game with incredibly tightly designed mechanics.
The game is split into parts which tell a singular story. Each game is an open world where you explore and solve puzzles to rescue others.
It’s a grid-based game where you only have a certain number of steps (n-steps, in fact) before you die. You can touch flags to set the number of steps that you have to the number indicated by the flag. There are many more puzzle elements like conveyor belts, ice, blocks to push, splitters that duplicate things, playing as multiple characters, alien things that turn you to stone if you look at it.
The n-stepness of the game gives it this kind of mathematical flavor because it’s about distance and parity.
The game mechanics interact in very interesting ways, so experimenting is vital to learning how the game works. Asking questions about “what would happen if…” reward you with new knowledge.
There are special stars that you can collect throughout the world and collecting enough of them unlocks sections of the map (they are purely optional though).
There must be something about the intricacies of the mechanics that I do not understand because I can barely get any stars.
Sometimes there are so little moving parts that you are astounded that you can’t see the solution. That’s just how tightly the game is designed.
The music grows on you trust me.
Both parts are free, so there’s no reason not to play them.