An Overdue Appreciation of the Brilliance of BoxBoy

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1

Sorry, Qbby. I’m so sorry. I should have seen you sooner. But now I’m here, man, your games are magic.

This is a companion discussion topic for the original entry at https://waypoint.vice.com/en_us/article/an-overdue-appreciation-of-the-brilliance-of-boxboy
2

I always feel bad that I haven’t played these games.

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3

I picked all three of these games up last week when I saw the first two were in the eShop E3 sale. I’m almost halfway through the first game and I wish I had played these sooner.

4

I’ve only played the first BoxBoy, but I really like how the game’s structure intentionally encourages the player to experiment with its mechanics without feeling restricted by external metrics like time or moves taken. That there is joy in solving a puzzle without feeling compelled to immediately replay it because of the thoughtless application of standard ranking systems. The clever bit is that the game does track these statistics, but only reveals them to the player after the game ends, framing the act of optimizing each puzzle as an optional challenge that shouldn’t ever affect a normal playthrough.

5

Fuck yeah, boxboy! While we’re at it, Pushmo is another criminally overlooked family of puzzle games that I adore. Stretchmo is probably my favorite game from Intelligent Systems at this point, and I liked Fire Emblem a lot.

6

More like Pushmowns.