Introduction:

There are a couple of things that I always have sitting on my desk: a notebook, a photo of my wife, and a puzzle. The puzzle is Titan, made by Felix Ure here in the UK. It is a 50mm solid brass sphere with one visible join across its circumference. It is a beautifully engineered object and is immensely satisfying to solve, if not incredibly challenging.

Now, this puzzle is a marvel. It gives no obvious clues to its opening other than the central join. It’s up to you to decipher and open the puzzle. The challenge lies in the limited information. Without any clear visual mechanism, it initially seems impossible to start, let alone finish the puzzle. Without spoiling the mechanism, by experimenting with its movement and deciphering what little information is available, you can eventually crack the vault, so to speak.

Now it’s over. The mechanism is revealed. The puzzle solved. The mystery is ruined.

You are still left with a stunning objet d’art, but you are now fully aware of its inner workings. Part of the beauty has faded, but a new appreciation emerges.

Where the Titan puzzle’s mechanism is grounded and limited by real-world physical constraints, video games are not. The same expertly crafted and obtuse exterior can lead to an incredibly deep and memorable experience. But once you have solved the puzzle, its mystery is gone forever.

This experience is rare, and it’s particularly difficult to find one so expertly crafted. But a few come to mind, most notably Outer Wilds. More recently, Lorelei and the Laser Eyes has also crafted a similar experience. Both are expertly designed games that riff on this puzzle box mechanism in their own distinct ways.

Outer Wilds.

There is no world in which we discuss this topic without mentioning Outer Wilds. Outer Wilds is the best game ever made. In it, you play as the newest astronaut of the Hearthians. After an interactive training session and an introduction to the central theme and story, you’re let loose into the solar system. That’s it. No direction. No objective. A vast, open space to explore, however you choose to explore it.

In this moment, you are both overwhelmed and without direction. All you can do is blindly pick a destination and start exploring. Without going into detail—because if you haven’t played the game, you should immediately pick it up and play—you gradually begin to peel back the layers of this world. With each subsequent investigation, more and more layers are revealed, and you start to form a rich tapestry through which you understand the solar system’s inner workings.

All of this culminates in an outstanding finale in which each individual component interacts with the others in such an incredible and intricate manner. Interactions and solutions that you would never have pieced together without the constant exploration and examination of the world and its beautifully written lore.

And then that’s it. It’s over. Almost as quickly as you finally understand the assignment, the game comes to an end. And much like the Titan puzzle, it leaves behind a somewhat sour aftertaste. There is no way you will ever be able to experience this again. Yet, alongside that sinking feeling comes a profound sense of appreciation. An appreciation for the intricate cogs that keep the watch running. An appreciation for the scale of the puzzles and their solutions. And an appreciation that you were allowed to experience something so profoundly beautiful in the first place.

Lorelei and the Laser Eyes

At its core, Lorelei and the Laser Eyes offers a very similar experience to Outer Wilds. It gives you a very brief introduction to the story. And by “brief,” I mean brief. The tutorial is nothing more than the bare bones, delivered in the form of an instruction manual in the glove compartment of your car. Then it sets you on your way.

It’s a similarly intimidating experience. The hotel looms large in the distance, only partially obscured by the eerie shadows of the towering forest. Venturing closer, you encounter a cemetery, a traveler’s wagon, and eventually the locked gate to the hotel itself. All of these initially seem innocuous on your first pass, but they will become vital pieces of the overarching mystery.

Once you gain access to the hotel, this is where things open up, much like in Outer Wilds. You can explore the majority of the hotel—or so it seems—except for a few locked shortcut doors. However, these can be unlocked with a handy little book of brainteasers.

Where the games differ is in how the information is presented to you. Outer Wilds presents its sandbox for you to explore, introducing you to the physical laws and mechanics as you go. Lorelei does something different. Its mechanical complexity is essentially non-existent, with most controls and interactions being limited to a single button press. Instead, it uses its narrative. Early exploration introduces narrative threads and alludes to locations in the hotel that you can’t yet access. Again, picking at these threads unravels the mystery, introducing you to multiple characters spanning hundreds of years through each diary entry. Instruction manuals provide the key information on the inner workings of the hotel, allowing you to unlock previously inaccessible doors or hidden passageways.

The finale follows a similar formula to Outer Wilds. Only when you fully understand the mystery—and by proxy, the story—can you uncover the darkest truth behind the game’s narrative. Once completed, the cat is once again out of the bag. You’ve worked through the final section of the game using everything you’ve learned, and the truths and lies of the characters are unveiled. The nature of the hotel is finally revealed.

It is an immensely satisfying puzzle to solve, much like Titan and Outer Wilds. Yet, like them, the final feeling is one of sadness. Everything is clearer in hindsight—the story makes sense. The design of the hotel becomes far simpler to navigate when going for achievements or attempting a subsequent playthrough. Although you may appreciate the design of the hotel, the visual artistry, and have a deeper understanding of the narrative, you are left with a similar inability to enjoy that experience to the same degree again.

Conclusion

This may all come across as somewhat negative, given how much I love these games. Why would anyone play a game that leaves them with such a profound feeling of sadness upon its completion? And in a way, it’s difficult to describe. These are experiences I cannot go back and experience fresh for the first time ever again. But each of them, in its own way, has left an indelible mark on me as a person and on the way I interact with the medium I love.

The Titan puzzle sits in view as a reminder of that initial challenge—the hours of experimentation, the frustration of feeling like no progress is being made, only to eventually arrive at the solution. A reminder that perseverance leads to a satisfying conclusion.

Outer Wilds, with its unbelievably intricate solar system—one that, like a finely tuned watch, seems impossibly complex at first—feels like something you could never fully understand. But once again, perseverance and an intense curiosity lead to a greater understanding of the world you move through, culminating in a climax that will be seared in my memory, dare I say, forever.

And then there’s Lorelei and the Laser Eyes. What at first seemed like a tangled mess of intimidating corridors and narrative threads transforms into a beautifully eerie tale—one that can only be truly appreciated once you’ve fully immersed yourself in its lore, environments, and puzzle design.

This is the type of game I wish was explored more. So much of modern gaming is focused on runtime, player engagement, and replayability. Some stories leave me thinking for a time after the credits roll. Yet this puzzle-box style of game leaves a far more indelible mark, affecting me long beyond the playthrough and leaving me yearning for more experiences just like these.