hozdesign – Good Escape

Block

Published by hozdesign. I played this on android.

The Short: The latest offender.

Recommended if you like being cheated.

Description: I furrow my brow and look closely. I am watching a youtube video. The video is a depiction of the solutions — the walkthrough — to a game called Block by hozdesign. I watch carefully. The solution I need arrives so I pause the video.

I screw up my eyes. I intend to understand. I want to understand. I try to understand. But I will not understand. Because the solution is nonsensical. How do 5 ink blots in a grid translate into cardinal directions? It’s simple. They don’t.

Hozdesign creates games that baffle me. It’s possible there is some kind of steep cultural rift between myself and these creators but I don’t understand how this can happen on such a consistent basis. I enjoy solving puzzles. I play a ton of these games. I can only conclude that hozdesign does this on purpose: they create arbitrary, meaningless puzzles that have no logical solution. It’s so sad. It makes me feel sad.

If I am wrong, please, someone — ANYONE — let me know.

Difficulty: Beyond Difficult
Difficulty Elements: — cascade | both readily-apparent & invisible puzzle arrays | both straightforward & esoteric interfaces | some Absurdity | both typical & unique solves

Table

Published by hozdesign. I played this on android.

The Short: Why? WHY?

Recommended if you like numbered rocks, magical tables

Description: I thought Table would be the one. I really did. I had hope, confidence, and love for this game. But hozdesign has betrayed me again. If you’re new here and don’t know what I’m talking about, read any of my past posts about this publisher.

This game is fun. It’s weird. It’s creepy and it’s hard. It is everything I like in an escape game. And then, right at the end, Table presents the player with a stupid, unintuitive and — in my opinion — unsolvable puzzle. I am shaking my head. I am sad. Why, hozdesign? Why?

Difficulty: Beyond Hard
Difficulty Elements: good cascade | both readily apparent & invisible puzzle arrays | esoteric interfaces | some Absurdity | unique solves

Blue

Published by hozdesign. I played this on android.

The Short: “I’ll allow it.” – Heben Nigatu

Recommended if you like alleyway furniture, isolation chambers, peeping through keyholes

Description: I’ve noted, ad nauseam, my ambivalent feelings towards hozdesign games. On the one hand, they maintain a very cool aesthetic style across games. The rooms themselves are always off kilter in a fun and challenging way. The puzzle quality, however, can be unpredictable. Blue is right on the line for me between being a technically “good” game versus another disappointment. I, personally, was not able to complete this game without a walk through and when I did watch the walkthrough, I was very irritated to learn that I had arrived at the correct solution but something about the way the room was visually designed confused my ability to execute on that solution. I am willing, this time, to chalk this up to human error and I will not fully penalize the game. I still won’t give this a Seal of Goodness though. After all, what are we without our standards?

Difficulty: Hard
Difficulty Elements: ok cascade | both readily apparent & invisible puzzle arrays | both straightforward & esoteric interfaces | a touch of Absurdity | typical solves

Wall

Published by hozdesign . I played this on android.

The Short: Infuriating.

Recommended if you like unlit basements, bricks, tearing your hair out

Description: I’ve said it before but I will say it again. Hozdesign, you have a lot to answer for. I do not understand who is solving these puzzles without walkthroughs. This blog is fast approaching its 100th post. I am not a novice player here. I have encountered my fair share of stumps and brain farts, only to watch a walkthrough and go “Oh! Of course! Silly me.” Not so with hozdesign. It’s a veritable vipers nest of unsolvable games. Too often have I felt cheated by these solutions.

Wall is a great concept. It’s challenging, imaginative, and well-designed in terms of the aesthetics. But these puzzles are just too damn hard. There are too many canyon-sized leaps of inference asked of the player. The codices and reference objects are difficult to understand. It’s not a game. It feels more like a punishing mental exercise conducted by your cruel, pipe-smoking, Sensei.

Note: I believe these games by hozdesign are good: Mr. 3939, G.R.E.E.N., and Chairs.

Difficulty: Beyond Hard
Difficulty Elements: — cascade |both straightforward & invisible puzzle arrays | esoteric interfaces | no Absurdity | unique solves

Chairs

Published by hozdesign. I played this on android.

The Short: You wake up in a blank room with four, color coded chairs. If you can figure out what the heck is going on, you’re in for a real treat.

Recommended if you like feeling taunted by pedestrian objects

Description: I have had a lot to say about hozdesign over this past year. Most of their games really disappoint me. But now I can say that in addition to G.R.E.E.N., I also really like Chairs.

Hozdesign has a talent for creating uncanny spaces. They populate their worlds with very common objects but subvert the meaning of those objects by expecting you to use them in bizarre and unexpected ways. They also create very streamlined spaces that are simplistic but in a cheeky way as if to say — while jabbing you in the rib cage — “The solution is so simple. Haven’t you figured it out by now?”

Chairs is funny, challenging and an outstanding brain teaser as escape games go. There’s a tipping point of madness in this game when you will almost certainly feel insane, staring at four blank walls and four high-backed chairs wondering what you’re missing. Still, this game manages to avoid becoming “Beyond Hard” by constraining the number of codices the player is expected to keep in their mind’s eye. Still, you may need to resort to brute force trial and error with your Items if you want to defeat the chairs.

I will say that in my version, I encountered a pretty ridiculous glitch that forced me to start over. I kept collecting colored tiles and they kept disappearing. For a long time I thought this was part of the game but it wasn’t. It was a total glitch. Starting over once fixed it 100%.