What does make a good platform and puzzle videogame? Is it the unresponsive controls? Or maybe the luck-based stages with instant deaths? Probably it’s how abilities’ lag may cause losing time and many more deaths. Some may argue it is the long backtracking from checkpoints to the actual puzzles, with slow sections in between where control is taken from the players, thus making the videogame a glorified slide show. Others will say “No, it’s how control inputs overlap with each other, so every move is always a shot in the dark”. But then again, can we forget the huge importance of having slow characters during segments that require perfect, immediate reflex to achieve success? As well as how important is to have precise movements nullified because the characters’ idle animations, like breathing and floating, still lead to death as they are out of the players control? My favourite though has to be having controls mirrored for an entire chapter but the camera still functioning as normal, so that the players cannot see where they are going and move in that direction at the same time. Priceless.

So, really, what does make a good platform and puzzle videogame? Because I don’t know anymore.

What I do know is that blind trial and error does not equate to a balanced learning curve, just as banging the head against a door does not equate to finding the key to open it. Putting aside how highly impractical that is, most importantly it can’t be described, by no means, as a fun experience.