Gorogoa review: A strange and colorful puzzle game

Part of what makes a good puzzle game is the inevitable “a-ha” moment, the sense of accomplishment you get as you fit all the pieces together. Gorogoa is replete with these satisfying moments, enhanced by gorgeous hand-drawn visuals that pull you into its surreal world.

The puzzle game involves shifting a series of images around on a four-tile panel, zooming in and out of each scene to line up the illustrations in unique ways. The levels start off easy, increasing in complexity as gameplay progresses. Gorogoa starts off with a scene depicting a young boy who becomes obsessed with a strange creature he spots out the window. Your overarching goal is to collect a series of fruit, which all tie back to that strange, colorful creature.

Gorogoa is a work of optical illusion at its finest. It forces the player to pay attention to every detail of every hand-drawn image, because everything is both a part of the bigger picture and simultaneously is its own bigger picture. Many puzzles require a shift in perspective, a sort of “think outside the box” mentality that can be quite literal at times.

Each illustration elegantly combines with bits and pieces of other tiles to form new scenes and reveal new information. The clever use of color acts as a motif for each puzzle, guiding the player toward clues that help them solve the scene at hand and collect the corresponding fruit.

An oddly shaped doorway may align with another doorway far off in the distance of a seemingly unrelated tile. A star in the night sky may be used to ignite a lamp in a dark room. An image in a thought bubble may expand into a whole new scene with sketches that can be used to change the thinker’s mind. As all the pieces begin to fit together, the child begins to move through each surreal scene, almost as if your minds are one in the same.

Gorogoa is an original, imaginative treat that is as much an aesthetic masterpiece as it is a puzzle game.

— Shacknews.com