Understand

Understand is a minimalist rule-discovery puzzle game inspired by The Witness, the goal is to trace one of the possible correct lines in every puzzle.

The game is divided into 12 worlds, each having its own theme. The levels are sets of puzzles in which you have to figure out how everything works through trial and error. The first puzzle of a level is free, its solution is always indicated in order for you to start making hypotheses right away. The few following puzzles stay small and basic, it’s easy to brute force them and they allow you to really start studying the hidden rules. These rules are displayed as dots on the bottom of the screen; when the line you trace respects a rule, the corresponding dot activates.
The puzzles gradually become harder and harder until brute force becomes impossible; the last level always hides the dots, meaning you never know what you did wrong: you always have to understand all the rules if you want to complete a level.

Studying the rules requires you to do a thing that pretty much no other puzzle game asks of you, that is to say to make mistakes on purpose. While it’s true that trial and error is a part of this game, this is a different kind of trial and error that rather tests your creativity.
You know the theme of the world, the rules of the previous levels and the solutions of the first few puzzles, so you’re never trying blindly.

Understand is a very hard game, it will inevitably get frustrating and reaching 100% completion is hell. The game really likes to misdirect you, lots of puzzles are made so that you can’t really grasp the subtleties of the rules easily, you often end up “understanding” 80% of a level until it suddenly stops working.
Some puzzles are also purely hard, understanding the rules doesn’t mean the level becomes easy… far from it. And that’s what’s great about this game, it’s not just about discovering the rules.
You can get stuck on easy levels because you don’t understand the rules, but you can also get stuck on hard levels even if you understand everything.

A simple but extremely effective gameplay, very challenging levels and a wide variety of mechanics, Understand has everything that makes a great puzzle game.
Highly recommended.

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Developer: Artless Games
Publisher: Artless Games
Platforms: Steam – Windows/macOS, Nintendo Switch
Release Date: October 31, 2020