Memory’s Reach is a metroidvania that focuses on exploration and puzzle gameplay. This is a game that you can take at your own pace and really dig into the mechanical functioning of the world.
For this month’s dev update, I wanted to run through some of the types of puzzles you’ll encounter in the game.
Please note: many of the screenshots below contain non-final and placeholder art.
Single Puzzles
These are discrete, self-contained logic puzzles that usually come in the form of holographic displays. You access these from a terminal and solve the puzzle using its bespoke interface. Generally these sorts of puzzles are used to break up exploration and gate progress by unlocking doors or activating machinery and so forth.
Navigation & Puzzle-box Rooms
These are challenges that incorporate the room or immediate environment. You will need to use a variety of the tools and abilities at your disposal to proceed. These could be navigation based (e.g. figuring out how to align a series of platforms in order to move around a room), observation based (e.g. identifying hidden features in a room), logic based (e.g. deducing how various elements of a room interact with each other), or mechanics based (e.g. solving the puzzle requires use of a bespoke mechanic or player ability). Many rooms involve a combination of several types.
Environmental Mastery
Each level contains large-scale puzzles that span multiple rooms and often involve large portions of the wider level. You will need to become familiar with the level layout and how everything is connected together, understand how the mechanics can be used to interact with and manipulate that layout, and then apply that knowledge in order to proceed. Or put another way: each level is one massive puzzle!
Collectible Hunt
Many optional collectibles are scattered throughout the game (more on them in a future update), and finding them all is an additional challenge. Sometimes these are rewards for solving some of the puzzles above, while other times they are rewards for exploration and finding hidden paths. Finding them all will help to unravel story and even provide clues to more hidden secrets!
Combining Them All
Each area of the game includes a mix of all of these sorts of puzzles, and often in combination with one another. For example, while at times a Single Puzzle might be used simply to unlock a door, at other times one or more of them might be used as components of a Puzzle-box room. Meanwhile as you work your way through the level, opening paths, powering up devices, raising bridges, etc, you are actually setting up the conditions for the Environmental Mastery challenge to begin…