I just spent a lot of time with the puzzle game Stephen's Sausage Roll. Not enough time to play the game, but enough to agree in the chorus of developers and critics who have already played the game. Stephen's Sausage Roll, so the tenor, is the "Dark Souls of the Puzzle Games".This means: It is extremely difficult, but also a lesson in brilliant gamedesign.
It's quite possible that you have already encountered the game on Steam, and it would have been easy to trace, Stephen's Sausage Roll is ugly, the steambutter description is scarce and the trailer is not sagging. And then the whole costs almost 30 €, for an indie game quite a house number.
And the game itself is not very inviting: you can find yourself on an island without an intro or a tutorial, which goes beyond an explanation of the key assignment. You are a chunky figure carrying a huge fork in front of you. Quickly, the unintuitive tank control will be noticeable, and sooner or later you will place your figure, albeit cumbersome, so that it covers one of the ghosting silhouettes. This way you enter a level, and although it is not explicitly stated, it is easy to see what is to be done: Each level contains one or more grills and one or more sausages. You can add one and one yourself.
The sausages perfect to grill is heavier than it initially looks. Each sausage takes two of the tiles into which the levels are divided. In addition, it has two sides. The sausages therefore have four sections, all of which must touch a barbecue once. In two touches, they burn and the level is lost. All levels are also surrounded by water - if the sausages fall in there, this also leads to a failed attempt. The figure also takes two tiles, and the radius of the fork during turning makes maneuvering in the level more difficult. A wrong move, a sausage has already been burnt or landed in the sea.
As with The Witness, the point here is to learn through trial and error and to apply it correctly. However, at Stephen's Sausage Roll, the rules are introduced less abstractly and more elegantly. They take the form of additional level elements instead of symbols and not only bring new challenges, but also new possibilities and answers to one or the other question you have asked yourself to play ("Why I wear a huge fork, but can The sausages do not spit? "). Although Stephen's Sausage Roll is even more difficult than The Witness, it is nevertheless less frustrating.
Blow is not the only developer who celebrates his colleague's game. Bennett Foddy, the maker of QWOP, puts the genius of the game to the point: "You never get an extra button or an additional kind of sausage or something" - but nevertheless each individual level delivers a "Heureka!" Moment. Although the task is identical in each level, Stephen's Sausage Roll is almost never repeated. Unlike The Witness, there are not ten variants of the same puzzles that spell out one and the same rule. Each puzzle in Stephen's Sausage Roll reveals a specific problem ("How do I get one sausage past the other?", "How do I griddle all sausages without blocking the exit?"), Which is unique in the game, if at all , Then only once with a clever twist occurs.
And that's exactly why the dark-souls comparison is ultimately even more appropriate than the one with The Witness. As hard as the game is (and to emphasize again: Stephen's Sausage Roll is softer): It is never difficult for the sake of the difficulty, and there is no filling material. In Dark Souls, each opponent is placed wisely, each fight offers a specific challenge and prepares a bit for the next opponent; The initially seemingly mutually independent areas of the world of the game depend in a meaningful manner. Likewise, every level has a function in the overall structure, and although almost nothing is repeated, one learns of each puzzle valuable skills for the next.
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