Understand

Difficulty : 4.5/5 (Extremely Hard)
Global : 4/5 (Great)
Curator page : Anokturnus
Understand is a minimalist rule-discovery puzzle game inspired by The Witness, the goal is to trace one of the possible correct lines in every puzzle.
The game is divided into 12 worlds, each having its own theme. The levels are sets of puzzles in which you have to figure out how everything works through trial and error. The first puzzle of a level is free, its solution is always indicated in order for you to start making hypotheses right away.
The few puzzles following the first stay small and basic, it's easy to brute force them and they allow you to really start studying the hidden rules. These rules are displayed as dots on the bottom of the screen; when the line you trace respects a rule, the corresponding dot activates.
The puzzles gradually become harder and harder until brute force becomes impossible; the last level always hides the dots, meaning you never know what you did wrong : you always have to understand all the rules if you want to complete a level.
Studying the rules requires you to do a thing that pretty much no other puzzle game asks of you, that is to say to make mistakes on purpose. While it's true that trial and error is a part of this game, this is a different kind of trial and error that rather tests your creativity.
You know the theme of the world, the rules of the previous levels and the solutions of the first few puzzles so you're never trying blindly.
Understand is a very hard game, it will inevitably get frustrating and reaching 100% completion is hell. The game really likes to misdirect you, lots of puzzles are made so that you can't really grasp the subtleties of the rules easily, you often end up "understanding" 80% of a level until it suddenly stops working.
Some puzzles are also purely hard, understanding the rules doesn't mean the level becomes easy... far from it. And that's what's great about this game, it's not just about discovering the rules.
You can get stuck on easy levels because you don't understand the rules, but you can also get stuck on hard levels even if you understand everything.
A simple but extremely effective gameplay, very challenging levels and a wide variety of mechanics, Understand has everything that makes a great puzzle game.
Highly recommended.

I just got to the middle of world 9 and am feeling fatigued with this game so I will take a break. That's not to say this game is bad actually quite the opposite I think it exercises creative and logical thinking and problem solving beautifully but it does require intense focus and in my case as someone with shorter attention span due to all the social media I used to consume it got really tiresome and I could solve less and less levels each time before becoming mentally fatigued. But that is a good thing as well as it's training my focus just be prepared that you will need to take a break.

It's okay, but I tapped out midway through stage 4-6. It starts out strong, but becomes less about "understand" and more about "guess".
So The Witness is what you're going to compare it to. There's two goals in that game.
1. Understand the rules
2. Solve the puzzles given your understanding of the rules.
But in The Witness, the rules stay the same the whole game and you get the satisfaction of solving puzzles. In Understand, the rules change every single stage. The intro levels to each stage are minimal and follow a pattern that is set up to deceive you. Then by the 5th board comes the predictable curveball "Aha, you actually *don't* understand the rules for this stage!". So you go back to the intro levels to see what incorrect assumption you made, but the intro levels are so tiny there's not much room to experiement or learn more. You eventually do guess correctly and you get the privilege of solving one or two *actual puzzles* before moving on to the next board, with all fresh rules, and the guessing process begins all over.
And to be fair, some of these rules are pretty goofy. The prime number one I actually did get, but god that was a slog. Counting out free spaces on a 8x10 board isn't very fun either.
I like solving puzzles and guessing at rules, but the balance is all out of whack. A game 25% of the length with consistent rules would have been a better choice IMO
One possible course of action is to read the level guide that gives you the rule hints for each stage, and then you can simply enjoy the puzzles. I considered this. Maybe I'll come back to it later.
Overall it's a neat game, and you can't go wrong with the price. I got my money's worth. It's not a bad game, it just overstayed its welcome for my personal taste.

I like the fact that you have to sort of blindly commit to a rule and see if it work. Really tests your creative and imaginative capabilities. However, it is a bit difficult.

Extremely concentrated version of The Witness. Good stuff.

All chapters complete, phew. This puzzle game by solo dev Artless Games, has a very simple look with deep layers of puzzle meaning underneath. If you liked The Witness, Baba is You, Spacechem, this is clearly inspired by the puzzles there. It has two main mechanics; solving a puzzle on a grid according to certain rules, and ... figuring out what those rules are, because they're obscured! But they'll tell you if you get them right, and then you have to go back and forth between the grids to see "ok does that also work in this instance? what if I draw it this way instead?" Very much made for people who like tinkering and testing. Despite some of the utterly bizarre "solutions" towards the endgame, thank goodness for online forums to provide hints. I do appreciate that, even with hints to Understand the rules, that doesn't spoil how to use them to solve the grids!

-The-Review-
tbh, some levels are quite uninspiring unlike The Witness (a direct reference of The Witness can be found in this game). But overall, it's a decent puzzle game with some really interesting think-out-of-the-box puzzle.