The Court Of Wanderers

The Court Of Wanderers is a sokoban puzzle game with a clever level design reminiscent of Stephen’s Sausage Roll and Bonfire Peaks.

First, let’s get this right: this is not an open world as described on the Steam page. There are elements of it, but the different areas and most of the puzzles are locked until you’ve solved enough puzzles.
It’s just that there is no level selection menu, you get to wander in a hub in which there are areas/puzzles behind each door, and sometimes puzzles in the hub itself. Which is pretty cool but could’ve been pushed a bit further, I’m always a bit sad when I see hub puzzles but no meta stuff.

The Court Of Wanderers uses rotation as its main mechanic. There are pads that let you rotate everything (yes, everything, even the walls) in their radius and at the same height when you step on them.
The game is divided into 4 areas and the first two of them introduce new mechanics, namely movable objects and floating platforms. So the game doesn’t have a lot of mechanics, and there are not a lot of puzzles either (around 60).

But we all know that few mechanics + few puzzles is the bread and butter of smart sokoban games. Like I said in my intro, the game follows the same path and has the same feeling as Stephen’s Sausage Roll and Bonfire Peaks.
There’s no filler level, they thoroughly explore the mechanics and every single one of them is interesting. They also play a lot with verticality, which adds a lot more depth and complexity without ever becoming too big and tedious.
Several puzzles really put a smile on your face when you discover their solution, the trademark signature of a quality design.

Not everything is perfect though, the camera allows you to change angles and zoom in, but it’s still sometimes a bit hard to judge the height and see everything correctly.
I also wish the game was more ambitious. Like, visually more appealing with a better dungeon setting, some music (yes, there’s no music), meta puzzles, brutally hard puzzles…

I really feel like The Court Of Wanderers could’ve been much more and up there with the best of the genre, but it’s still a high quality puzzle game that got the most important things perfectly right.
Highly recommended.

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Developer: Lennart Bours
Publisher: Lennart Bours
Platform: Steam – Windows
Release Date: May 20, 2024