A Monster’s Expedition

I play 100+ puzzle games every year and this is likely my favourite release of 2020.
Draknek and his team have truly advanced the state of the art in how the game's world is put together and how exploration and puzzle-solving are interconnected. There is no other puzzle game that does quite what this one does in terms of the interaction between mechanics design, navigation, and secret-finding. It's not just a game about pushing and rolling cylinders around, it's a game about really interesting cause-and-effect relationships between the cylinders, the spaces they're placed in, and the places that you wanna get to but can't.
If you're a serious puzzle gamer, don't be put off by the game's pastel appearance and the choice of marketing and press quotes that emphasize the soothing or cozy nature of the gameplay. The game's content, including the low-difficulty puzzles, are still very interesting even if you're an experienced puzzle-solver.
The approachability of the game is achieved by having an "easy path" through most of the areas. In this case, easy does not mean "uninteresting", but instead means "interesting puzzles that are rigged so that low-skill solvers are highly likely to stumble upon the solution". If you're a veteran puzzle-solver, you may not even realize this. It's quite clever. The puzzles off the "easy path" are quite challenging (some mind-bogglingly so) and many are incredible feats of design that you will not want to miss.
The art, sound, and writing are competently executed, and the controls, audio, and visuals do not get in the way of the puzzle-solving. The narrative is entirely flavourtext and is completely irrelevant to the puzzle content, so you can ignore it if you don't care for it (but some of it is hilarious).
There is one "thing I wish I knew before I started playing", and this is that if you want to find all the secrets, you should first rush to complete to the game (get to the credits) before spending a lot of time trying to find secrets. Trying to 100% each area individually during your first playthrough will lead to a lot of frustration and wasted time.
This game is wonderful. I hope Drak makes an expansion/sequel with another 500+ islands. There are enough unused tricks and unexplored design space here that he could easily fill it (but adding 3x1 logs might also be fun).

This game genuinely has some of the cleverest bits of design I've ever seen. There's one moment early on that's so carefully engineered to guide the player into doing the one thing that seems like it will progress, only to reveal several mechanics that were there all along that you just didn't know about.
The whole game is like that. And it's huge- as I write this, 7 hours in, I'm nowhere near done. And this isn't 7 hours of filler content either, the puzzle design is extremely high quality through everything I've played and I still keep learning new interactions between familiar ideas.
This is one of the easiest recommendations I've ever given. Get this game.

An expertly designed log pushing puzzler featuring the monster protagonist from one of my favourite puzzlers, A Good Snowman is Hard to Build. One of my most anticipated games of the year, but also one I'd lost hope I'd be able to play when an issue with the FMOD plugin in Unity prevented the Linux version from being released. Therefore, I was very surprised, and extremely excited when I was asked to test a Linux build in mid November.
This game is everything I'd hoped it would be. There's a huge world of islands to puzzle your way through, and many more hours of puzzles and exploration if you want to find everything. This exploration aspect is something I really love in a puzzle game, though it's not something I come across often, so I appreciate it all the more when it's done as well as in this game.
The basic puzzle mechanic is to tip over trees to create logs, which you navigate into place to create bridges between islands. Logs come in two lengths; short ones, which you can flip lengthwise, and long ones which you can only push. Both kinds can be rolled, and will keep rolling until they reach an obstacle, like rocks or tree stumps, or fall into water. Occasionally, you're able to make rafts, which can take you a long way across the ocean, until you land on a new group of islands.
To get through the game, you will travel between many of these groups of islands, which all have slightly different themes, and sometimes introduce new mechanics. It's not always obvious how to progress, bu thankfully, the map offers hints in the form of a footstep marker, which will show you which island you should focus your attention on. And if you find yourself stuck at any point, you can always go back to the nearest mailbox to instantly travel to a previously visited section of the map, and try to unlock an undiscovered area.
It's possible to play the game with a mouse or gamepad, but I found it very comfortable to play with just a keyboard. I got the game free on Steam for testing purposes, but I ended up "double dipping" on Itch.io, because I'm very happy to be able to play this game naively on Linux.
System, settings and performance

Operating system
Pop!_OS 20.04 LTS x86_64 (5.4.0-7642-generic kernel)


CPU/GPU/RAM
i7-8750H / GTX 1060 Mobile (440.100 driver) / 7.50 GiB

I've just started playing this game (less than one hour) and I'm already in love with it. It truly can only be defined as an "open world puzzle game"; it sits somewhere between a world with lots of puzzles and a huge, world-sized puzzle. The mechanics are simple, the puzzle design is elegant, the game is accessible and has a little bit for everyone, and the music/sounds/graphics/polish/humor are all incredibly good. It feels like one of the few truly ambitious puzzle games

A Monster’s Expedition is an open world puzzle adventure game taking place in an open-air museum that includes hundreds of islands to explore and dozens of friends to meet.
The difficulty of the game is manageable until reaching the endpoint; however, those who prefer exploring all islands in the game rather than just going through the main story may have a hard time completing the game.
The story is simply about a monster visiting an open-air museum to learn more about human culture through countless exhibitions available on many of these islands.
The mechanics are simple but very deep. Even though the player can only use four buttons to move in four directions, these buttons may lead to interesting interactions.
The cute art style and relaxing music create a peaceful environment within the game. The players can enjoy the atmosphere when they are stuck on a puzzle and keep trying when they feel ready.
The game is quite challenging, especially during the late game; however, it is very relaxing from start to the end. It is highly recommended for the players who enjoy puzzle games that have simple mechanics but so much to uncover. A lot of effort and love has gone into this game. It is the most huggable game for sure.

At this point, if Jon Blow says a puzzle game is good, just get it, honestly. He's like 6 for 6 or something so far.

This is less of a review and more of me gushing about how much im enjoying myself, but you can still get a idea of what the game is from it. I am not usually a puzzle game player, or even a "chill" game player. im usually all about quick shooters, fighters, and platformers, but i decided to give this game a shot and i am very glad i did. with a mechanic as simple as pushing trees i thought that it would be simple enough for me to have a good time, the last time i played a puzzle game was BaBa is You and i put 14 hours into it and never got past word 3, it was just too much for me. but this game manages to still be challenging even with it laying all the pieces out in front of me, it introduces new features not by putting one in a level and saying good luck, it makes you do something you have done before but gives a new outcome, because you never got to do that thing in that exact way before, and when puzzles start requiring you to do those things you wonder how you ever got that far without doing one of those things before. all of the mechanics and solutions also are based in logic, all your doing is pushing things, so you dont have to suspend your current understanding of things to learn a new mechanic. The world of the game is also very relaxing and sucks me right in, its a museum of the "past" of humans that takes place in the far future from the perspective of monsters who dont really understand human culture, and it is hilarious! the music is very chill and moves with your actions, when you push something in a specific way the music also does a specific things, and its part of the reason this game is so relaxing. most other puzzle games i have played frustrate me when i get stuck on a puzzle for a long time, but seeing the monster relax helps me relax and keep a level head to get to the next museum exhibit. i dont know how to end this review but if you read it i hope you dont feel like i wasted your time!