Introduction
Gorongoa is a lateral-thinking puzzle game– and it’s pretty hard to describe beyond that. You helping a kid collect five colored orbs by piecing together, replacing, and layering parts of various scenes with each other, zooming into and out of pictures and objects as if to see the stories behind each of them, and watch the worlds interact with each other as they serendipitously align. It’s a beautiful game that strikes me as much as much about the art as it is anything else.
Formal Elements
- Objective: Get the kid to their next destination, somehow.
- Players: Fully singleplayer.
- Boundaries: For the player, the boundary of the computer screen and controller. Within the game, the boundary is the four panels you have to work with.
- Resources: Up to four panels, each representing some kind of parallel universe or timeline or story centering around this kid at various stages of their life.
- Procedures: Solve progression puzzles by layering and unlayering different connecting pieces and having them interact with each other.
- Rules: The player may zoom into or out of certain scenes, pan certain scenes around, move scenes around a 2×2 grid, and sometimes layer or unlayer scenes to combine or uncombine them, sometimes revealing new scenes.
- Outcomes: The player either wins or becomes stuck, the only way to “lose” is by stopping before the end.
The Puzzle & The Game
I would categorize Gorongoa as somewhere between discovery and sensation, leaning more towards the latter. The game is short, and it provides ample hints in case you get stuck; I wouldn’t categorize it as “challenge” even though it was still a lot of fun to solve the puzzles and there were a few head-scratchers in there, because I had the most fun just looking at the art and being surprised by how pieces would fall apart and come together; my moments of greatest joy was when I would move a panel around and discover “OH! There’s another panel beneath it! Oooooh!!” And this is where I’d say the puzzle has the greatest influence on the experience of the game: the lateral nature of the puzzle creates moments of surprise and joy when you discover how something works. I would say the central mechanic for the puzzles in this game is the surprising serendipity & recontextualization. You stop looking for details as much as overarching patterns; one thing can mean another thing in a different context. This also means that, because the puzzles look for high-level context and patterns, the player is free to examine and admire the details as art rather than scrutinizing it for the puzzle. This game is beautiful, and it gives the players space to admire the game for its beauty while solving the puzzles, without allowing the puzzles to frustrate, confuse, or otherwise take away from the details of the art itself.
