Recursed

I absolutely don’t know why this game isn’t more popular, this is the very definition of a “hidden gem”. Even the price is ridiculously low for a game like that so I really don’t get it.
Recursed is a puzzle/platformer consisting of 99% thinking and 1% platforming, you don’t need any skills in platforming to do any of the puzzles.

The goal of the puzzles is simple, there is a gem and you have to touch it. To do so, you use various mechanics revolving around the main one : recursion. There are chests you can enter that contain a room. This room can also have items, for example another chest that leads to another room (or to the same room than the previous one). At any moment you can exit the chest you’re in and you can carry one item.
This seems complicated, and it is. The difficulty potential of this game is through the roof and puts games like Baba Is You and Stephen’s Sausage Roll to shame. But the base game doesn’t push the difficulty that high, don’t worry.
The difficulty curve is very good, the first few puzzles don’t even use recursion. The mechanics are slowly added (one in each world + one in each expansion) and introduced through easy levels like any good puzzle game. It takes time to get used to the mind-bending nature of this game so it’s consistently very hard.

Puzzle design is phenomenal. The puzzles are small and despite the recursion you never have the feeling they are redundant. That’s the mark of a very good puzzle game.
There are also hidden levels when you manage to trigger a paradox or an invalidity. These levels force you to think outside of the box and this is the mark of a masterful puzzle game.

Now I’d like to talk about the fanmade dlc that isn’t directly in the game, The Ice Palace.
The base game and its 2 expansions push the difficulty extremely high, but that’s nothing compared to this dlc.
I said the difficulty potential was through the roof and The Ice Palace pushes all the mechanics to their absolute limits, making use of things you didn’t even imagine after having fully completed the base game.
It doesn’t even fit in my difficulty rating, this is 2x harder than Stephen’s Sausage Roll or Baba Is You to give you an idea; and without being unfair or artificial. The puzzles are still small with just a few items, you can easily memorize them and think outside of the game (I solved several puzzles while sleeping).
I’m a huge puzzle fan and completing it is my best achievement by far. It’s 18 levels and it took me more time than the base game + its 2 expansions.
And there is a chest after The Ice Palace that contains 6 levels that I couldn’t beat (at least at the time of this review). Being defeated by fair puzzles is a first for me.

Anyway this game is perfect and deserves all the praise it gets from the few people that found it.
I really hope the dev will continue to make games.

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Developer: Portponky
Publisher: Shambles Software
Platforms: Steam – Windows/Linux/macOS
Release Date: September 30, 2016