Ever since the language puzzle in Tunic that got me to fill up 6 pocket sized pages of notes over multiple days while trying to puzzle it out as I tried to and, eventually, succeeded at translating the in-game “paper” manual, I’ve had a craving for games that force you to pull out a notebook and take notes/puzzle things out as part of the actual meta-gameplay mechanics, because the game doesn’t just do that thinking for you.
What other games are like this, even a little bit, that you’ve loved?
And to be clear, I don’t mean things like TTRPGs which are just inherently on paper. Those are cool and all, but aren’t this thing. I want things that force me to engage my thinking beyond what the inputs of a controller and medium of a screen and my short-term memory alone can do for me.
I did this for the Witness - it really helped to think out some of the puzzles if scribbled possible solutions down. Oh and Obra Dinn to an extent - mostly things like ‘I saw this guy hanging around in this memory - could he be X’?
Seconding the witness
Yeah, I did this for the witness sort of. If I got stuck on a puzzle and was finishing up a session, I’d take a photo and then draw over the top of it as I went about my day, so I’d come back to the game with a solution.
Return of the Obra Dinn
Came here to mention this. I had so many clues and mysteries I was trying to keep track of that I was regularly jotting down notes
Welcome to my favorite genre of game!
As they’ve already been mentioned before, I will second both La-Mulana (and though not mentioned, it’s sequel), and FEZ.
The Witness didn’t make me break out Pen and Paper, but it was definitely one I had to give my brain a break and come back to to look at things from a fresh angle.
Now for some previously unmentioned finds where your attention to detail will be rewarded. Not all will require notebooks. But there puzzles hidden in all of them.
Environmental Station Alpha is a Metroidvania.
Full Metal Furies is a side-scrolling beat-em up.
INSIDE is a side-scrolling platformer.
Inscryption is a deck-builder / puzzle room.
Myst and its mainline sequels, especially Riven will generally require pen and paper for almost all puzzles (except for the godforsaken train tunnel puzzle). Cyan has also made Obduction which is very similar and I ended up using pen and paper to take notes for. Quern: Undying Thoughts is a Myst-inspired game that is also like this.
the Submachine series by artist Mateusz Skutnik also benefits from using pen and paper, although a few of the games include virtual notes as well. The later games in the series are more open ended and require you memorizing coordinates if you don’t take notes. It also helps to write down which items you collect (potentially) go to which screens. It’s a 2D point and click adventure game series.
I came here to say “Any Cyan game”, Riven i think was definitely one of the most complex and needed the most notes. They’ve recently released Firmament and Riven remake is on its way too.
Just checked out firmament. Looks very cool.
Pretty much any 90s point and click adventure game made by Lucas arts, Sierra etc. No objective marker, no journal, you just wander around clicking things trying to mash items together. “Where did I see that symbol before?? flips through notebook Oh right!”
I’m going to hijack and offer a specific example: Shivers. In addition to having puzzles with clues and inputs spread apart, it also offers a Flashback system that saves important pieces of information that you’ve already seen (Though actually taking notes is all but required since you still have to tab through the books then go back to the actual puzzle, and some clues are just images placed throughout the museum) The game just oozes atmosphere and tension with the changes in soundtrack and all the writing and environmental storytelling not directly related to puzzles. Once you know all the game’s tricks, it does kind of take the edge out of the horror aspect, but even decades later it’s still just a treat to walk through the museum’s virtual exhibits.
Available on GOG right now, I suggest giving it a try, although do save your game often, as it’s Win95 era.
Definitely Fez when you start looking beyond the golden cubes.
Myst. Surprised this wasn’t mentioned yet.
Factorio
Gotta keep track of production balance somehow…
Maybe not my favorite game but one of the very few games I truly felt required pen and paper were some of the old Might & Magic games - most notably I think of the first 3 games.
Those were first person dungeon crawling RPGs. They didn’t have, what later became termed “automaps”, but what is now just a in-game map. So if you wanted to look at a map you had to either buy real life books they sold called Cluebooks which had maps printed in them or you had to pull out the graphing paper and get to drawing.
It wasn’t just a limitation of the time, the games back then honestly treated it like a feature. I think it was in M&M3 that you could eventually cast the spell “Wizard Eye” and the entire point of the spell was to present to you a minimap of the surrounding area. NPCs and quests didn’t put icons on your map (there was no map), you were given directions and had to figure out how to get there.
It happened only one time, when playing Final Fantasy X, I really wanted to know what they were saying before finding all the Al Bhed primers. So I found a few NPC, took notepad and using a few letters found in the beginning, I was guessing what they were saying. It was quite satisfying and helpful, albeit easy.
This, and for the various secret passwords scattered about. “Kilika and Bikanel join as one”.
I did that at one point too. There was a newspaper that I used to get that had a game that did the same thing. But I can’t seem to find it now.
No notepad, but an excellent explorative puzzle that had me making and remaking theories the whole time: outer wilds. Several people also mentioned obra dinn
EverQuest! I was pretty young back then, but I remember EQ not having a quest tracker back in the day. You’d talk to NPCs and have to keep track of what they were asking for.
I took that goddamn boat and ran for hours to get my warrior armor only to have no idea how to give the quest item to the centaur guy. I gave it to him and he just said “thanks”. It was brutal, but kinda hilarious in retrospect.
La-mulana. It’s one of those games that only has value if you play it blind and without a walkthrough. The game’s platforming and combat is subpar at best and atrocious at worst, but the riddles and the mythology make up for it. I played it around 2008 on the “MSX” freeware version, and it took me 10 months and 2 new save files after getting stuck. You have no chances of completing that game without extensive notes.
Original Metroid.
Oh man, last one that made me do that was probably Zork III. I was hand-drawing my own maps to navigate that game. I miss those days.
