Best Of: First Person Puzzlers
There are some absolute stalwarts that lead this wonderful genre, which nearly all games of their kind get compared to. Portal. The Talos Principle. Myst. The Witness. The niche genre has expanded over the years with some truly underrated gems - take Superliminal for example. With this category, I intend to shower you with puzzling riches. Don’t say I don’t do anything for you!
Platonic
Mashing The Witness and Myst together is evidently a way to create a banger, because the logic puzzles of the 5 islands of Platonic have some real brain teasers nestled within.
The Looker
Free
At once a loving homage and the greatest shitpost of The Witness you ever did see. Only an hour or two long, the line puzzles and audio logs here combine to create some of the most legitimate comedic gold I’ve ever witnessed (heh) in a video game.
Logicality
Staying on the Witness train, this game sits in the more serious homage section, except much smaller and focused.
Aethernaut
Has demo
A series of first person puzzles built around philosophical questions. Explore the construct, ponder thoughts, uncover the mystery of the voices that speak.
Disharmonia
A choice based first person game that takes a stab at The Stanley Parable style branching possibility space. It’s lack of attention and coverage make this one all the more mysterious!
Santo Island Incident
An inexpensive first person puzzler full of mystery and exploration. Make your way across an island to discover the secrets behind what’s caused nature to reclaim the facility and caused The Incident.
Cyphers Game
Free
A historically based edutainment game about breaking Bolshevik ciphers and destroying a Soviet armoured train.
Recursive Ruin
Has demo
An beautiful infinitely recursive world with a narrative heavy focus. This one may break your brain a little bit.
Hyperbolica
A non-euclidean world with some mind literal bending of reality. Interesting puzzles and tantalizing secrets abound!
The Entropy Center
Has demo
Where Portal makes you the master of space, The Entropy Centre makes you the master of time. "Think in reverse. Outsmart the impossible."
The Indigo Parallel
An absolutely wild, psychedelic procedurally generated horror-ish experience that will lead you down all sorts of paths depending on the choices you make. “Unique” is not something you get often in games, but if there’s a game that fits that descriptor, it’s this one.