I have a long-term love of logic puzzle games. I consider Hexcells, Tametsi and the DS’s Slitherlink to be among the greatest video games of all time. Mario’s Picross is surely the all-time best Game Boy game? My phone is very rarely not running at least one of Conceptis Puzzles’ Android apps. So it is with enormous pleasure that I welcome to their ranks the incredible Nurikabe World.
Nurikabe is—well, it’s a Japanese yōkai, a folkloric manifestation of an invisible wall that mischievously misdirects those walking at night. That’s not entirely relevant, but it’s also the name of a puzzle format created by legendary Japanese puzzle publisher Nikoli. Like so many other puzzling conceits, it begins on a square grid, with numbers scattered across various tiles, and the inherent demand is that the player eliminate squares until the puzzle is solved. But Nurikabe is a little different than others.
The basic idea here is to create a contiguous path of eliminated/shaded cells, such that each numbered tile is boxed off in an island containing the appropriate number of cells. If there’s a 2, it needs to be the 2 tile and one other blank, sealed off from others by all orthogonal routes. However, what makes Nurikabe more involved is that it has other rules that apply—there can be no two-by-two shaded areas, for instance. And that path of eliminated space must be orthogonally linked across the whole grid. It’s with these pieces of information that you can deduce possible solutions, in a way that’s far more involving and interesting than a bog-standard sudoku or what have you.
That’s Nurikabe, but what about Nurikabe World? Well, for the most part it’s this exact puzzling format, but presented in a stunningly clever and engaging way that makes it feel so much more special. And beyond that, it invents its own twists on the format, introducing new rules that require even more inventive thinking.
Nurikabe World takes the islands metaphor literally, having you eliminate cells on its 3D levels by turning land into water. As such, each puzzle has you carve a river through the green land that successfully isolates each numbered island, with the logic that the river itself must be linked up throughout. Once an island has been segregated into the correct number of tiles, the green grass then blossoms with plants, trees and traditional Japanese buildings, growing out of the ground in lovely animations. Absolutely, it’s all decoration, but it’s so superbly delivered that it makes the puzzles feel far more meaningful, and delivers a continuous sense of being rewarded for your efforts.
It helps that the enormous 150 levels are all hand-crafted, rather than procedurally generated, and like the best puzzles, demonstrate the wit and intelligence of the creator. For the first few dozens, as specific techniques become unavoidably necessary to solve the level, the concept will be explicitly explained—but rather brilliantly this happens long after you should have stumbled upon them for yourself if you’re paying attention. They’re only overtly explained when you’d be screwed without them.
Screenshot: Hemisquare / Kotaku
Then, in the second half of the collection, new twists are added. There are numbers with dots beneath them, indicating that these must be paired with another dotted number, their island representing the paired sum. Working out which two numbers are to be paired of the many available becomes a fascinating new challenge. Then there are numbers with lines underneath, which must form islands made in a straight line. And at the game’s best, all three number types appear in the same puzzle, meaning you need to weave all these freshly learned techniques together.
The final of the four groups of puzzles is called “Advance,” and contains far more meaty challenges, and it’s from midway through this collection that I write to you. I was not intending to be playing this game at all this week. I wrote about it last week on my own little site, and had meant to move on by now. But there it is, in the background, distracting me as I try to get through this sentence.
And when you’re done with the 150 puzzles, there are daily challenges too, and user-made puzzles to add and create!
Logic puzzle games are certainly pretty commonplace, but one designed and presented this well is a rare treat. And right now, in the Steam summer sale, it’s 25 percent off at just $7.50. That’s incredibly good value for puzzling money! Although, perhaps don’t make other plans.
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