[Win-OS X-Linux] Stephen's Sausage Roll - extraordinary puzzle game

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Szlia

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It is very difficult to write about, Stephen "Increpare" Lavelle latest game:Stephen's Sausage Roll. The first difficulty is that it is a puzzle game and, as such, its core virtues are in its mechanics and in its level design. The second difficulty is that discovering the mechanics is an integral part of the game so keeping things spoiler free without being vague is tough. Let's try though.


The incredible elegance of Stephen's Sausage Roll comes from the fact that from the very start of the game to its very end all the rules of the world are there, but the complexity and richness of the rule set are only unveiled little by little, because new puzzles offer the potential for new situations where new rules are discovered (and are often needed to solve the puzzle). To make an analogy, if you are able to walk on water but are in a desert, you can't know you have this ability. So Increpare would make you start in the desert, then later would put water in a level that would at first feel impossible until you realize you can in fact walk on water.

My analogy is not very good, because the beauty of this game's design is that, more often than not, it's not the apparition of a new component that allows a new rule to be discovered, it's using new configurations of known elements. Also the abilities and rules you discover do not come out of left field, they make sense and if they might be a little too surprising, levels are carefully designed (with funnels or bread crumbs) to guide you toward their discovery. Something that works with my analogy though is that an alarmingly high number of levels will at first make you believe they are impossible to solve. I can't tell you the number of times I discovered a new level only to mutter (or shout...) "What???? How???"

While I am slowly running out of superlatives, it is also important to note the game manages the feat to be both very long and very dense. Those familiar with Increpare's other puzzle games, be it the number of free games on the puzzlescript platform he created or his previous commercial product, English Country Tune (also highly recommended), know his aversion for fluff such as mundane tutorial levels, so these sausages are pure meat from the get go. There is no such thing as a level that does not bring something new to the table in form of an original challenge, so solving any single puzzle is extremely satisfying. Reaching this point is the fruit of a strenuous work of distillation that lasted years with dozens and dozens of levels that got discarded and all the rest going through multiple iterations and fine tuning to be sure that, as often as possible, they provide challenge the whole way through their resolution.

To give a sense of the scope of the game, I played through the final build in about eighteen hours, while I knew just about all the mechanics and had played most of the levels in an earlier build a year or so ago, so I would expect people new to the game to easily go past the 30 hours mark. It is important to note because, at $29, the price can feel pretty steep for an indie puzzle game, but that's probably less than $1 per hour of pure gameplay and level design meat. Another way to look at it is that it is without a doubt the cheapest masterclass in puzzle design money can buy!

With this package also comes a thin and strange narrative that works hand in hand with the structure of the game, and an aesthetic which at first seems a bit crude and rudimentary, but really grows on you with its surprising care to details such as weather effects, day/night cycles and a soundscape periodically haunted by some minimalist musical tracks. It should also be mentioned that the control of the character takes a little time getting used to, but pretty quick it becomes apparent as to why it is the way it is. Every move matters.

Official trailer:



Other opinions:

Destructoid 10/10 :Review: Stephen's Sausage Roll

The Guardian 5/5:Stephen??Ts Sausage Roll review ??" sizzling pork has never been this challenging | Technology | The Guardian

Jonathan Blow considers it to be "possibly the best puzzle game ever made."
 

Szlia

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Hardcore gamer: 4.5/5:Review: Stephens Sausage Roll | Hardcore Gamer

IGN Hungary: 9/10:Stephens Sausage Roll - Teszt - A világ legrandább, legokosabb játéka | IGN Hungary

There are not that many reviews out for the game at this point (if there was I would not link to IGN Hungary!). I am not sure if it is because review outlets think the game is too niche or because reviewers simply have a hard time playing through the game and, understandably, don't want to do a review if they feel like they only scratched its surface. Polygon for instance made a lengthy paper where they contacted several known indie devs who played the beta and published a gameplay video of them struggling mightily with some of the very early puzzles, which makes me a little worried in their ability to review it sometime before 2022!

Steam reviews are currently 95% positives out of 46 reviews (it should be noted a dozen of these reviews are from beta testers who, like me, have been waiting for more than a year to become sausage rolling evangelists - a bit like the Witness, it's a game you want your friends to play, not only because it is great, but so you can talk about it with them!)
 

Szlia

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It indeed does not. And the sum total of the info on the Steam store page is "A simple 3d puzzle game." It's in part because Increpare is both intransigent and facetious, in part because he never speaks about his games (he let his games do the talking for him or, to say it in another way, games are his media) and in part because discovering the mechanisms is a key element of the game.

You can already find a number of Let's Play video on youTube as well as a number of archived streams on Twitch (notably by FearfulFerret), but it's a bit of a catch 22, because you will either see some very early levels that are only the tip of the iceberg or later levels that will show you more mechanics but rob you from the epiphanies of discovering them as you play. On the up side, if you jump here and there in one of these video you are not very likely to see a puzzle being solved since the huge majority of the play time is spent trying to figure out solutions.

A couple gameplay info that could be added though is that the game offers infinite undo, making it very easy to experiment, but still almost impossible to brute force as the possibilities explode rapidly and that with the exception of a handful of puzzles, the execution of the solutions does not take a long time, it's figuring the solution that is hard. Puzzle ramp up in complexity, but don't get longer and longer (like they would in a bad and tedious game, but this is a good and elegant game).
 

Sulrn

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No offense meant, but you're not doing anything positive to break this out of the >95% indie games are for gaming-hipsters stereotype for me.
 

Szlia

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If you define a hipster as someone whose goal is to always be in the minority, the minority position would be to say this game is bad!

It's a puzzle game though, so if you don't like puzzle game, it's not for you. If you don't know if you like puzzle games, the game is probably a bit too tough to serve as an introduction to the genre. But if you like puzzle games... the time has come to roll some sausages!
 

Zaphid

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If you define a hipster as someone whose goal is to always be in the minority, the minority position would be to say this game is bad!

It's a puzzle game though, so if you don't like puzzle game, it's not for you. If you don't know if you like puzzle games, the game is probably a bit too tough to serve as an introduction to the genre. But if you like puzzle games... the time has come to roll some sausages!
I think what he's getting at is that "indie puzzle game with shitty/retro graphics" is a pretty crowded category and criticism of those games is often met with "Oh, but you don't get it, this is art" They are also a genre very easily youtubed if you don't want to pay and after you do that - well, why waste the money ?
 

Szlia

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About "getting it", I will agree that not everyone will be equally aware of the elegance of both the game design and level design of this game (it's no surprise that game designers and game critics alike have only very high praises for the game, since they are more likely to be sensitive about these things), but everyone who plays the game will be affected by this elegance. It's not some sort of meta game or hyper referential game where you need to know X, Y and Z to appreciate it, it's not some meditative or contemplative experience based game that requires some specific state of mind to enjoy, it's not a narrative heavy game that is praised based on its theme more than the quality of its writing: At its very core it is the gamiest of game. It's a start state, a win state, a rule set and you.

What I am trying to say is that you don't need to understand the design elegance of a Mario or a Dark Soul to enjoy playing them, but the reason you enjoy playing them is the quality of their design. No need to "get it", just need to play it!


As far a youTube video goes, for a game where the narration or the visuals are the main selling point, there indeed isn't much of a point to play the game yourself if you saw a whole walk-through of it. But you will agree that watching people play, say, Street Fighter or Tetris or Counter Strike, is not the same as playing those game. In the same way, watching a puzzle get solved is not at all the same as solving a puzzle (and a lot less entertaining!).

It should be said though that there is unexpected para-replay value in watching streamers struggle to solve puzzles you have already solved! It's both maddening and funny. Being able to vicariously re-live epiphanies is also surprisingly enjoyable. While tackling a daunting puzzle, FearfulFerret stumbled upon three new mechanics in rapid successions and the mix of amazement and terror he displayed as the doors of complexity slammed open was a sight to behold!
 

Intrinsic

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This game is infuriating. The closest thing I can compare it to is one of those slide block games, where you have to move the pieces around in order to free another block or create a path out. And that is only a very very lose comparison. Roll around these sausages to cook them, 1 too many rolls and you burn it, and there can be multiple sausages all needing to utilize a single 1x1 burner. So have to manipulate them around in and out of each other's way, without failing or putting yourself in a position where there are no more possible moves. Then you can undo or reset.

It isn't a Braid, or Talos Principle, or Myst.... or Scrapper. Certainly no more hipster or anything than those. It is a pretty simple concept that has been refined and fleshed out in to a whole game.
 

Intrinsic

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I have one puzzle left on the main island part and I'll be damned if I can figure it out. My opinion on it as a puzzle game has improved since day 1 though. Early stages it just seemed an exercise in frustration and brute force. But once you get a few down and kind of grasp the "theme" of the puzzles they are much more interesting to solve.

edit: nevermind! suck my balls, figured it out like two tries after posting!