LogFAQs > #966346592

#37: Bean and Nothingness

https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/a/user_image/5/7/1/AAA-H0AADapT.jpg

One of my friends, incnone (former Necrodancer champ), is one of the designers of this game, so I was kind of obligated to play it on his behalf. Fortunately, it's actually really good, so I'm not just plugging it because a friend made it! It's exciting to get to recommend a super obscure game that a friend made that deserves a little bit of love - it's a big reason why I enjoy making these lists in the first place.

Bean and Nothingness is a sokoban puzzle game in which you plant beans and grow them into monsters, which you then have to manipulate to get to the goal. I absolutely suck at this game, to be clear, and I haven't gotten very far in it, because it gets pretty hard pretty fast, so I don't know exactly how long it is, but it seems likely to be pretty lengthy.

https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/a/user_image/5/7/2/AAA-H0AADapU.jpg

(Pictured: some stuff in the game I haven't seen yet. Oh god, what is happening? I'm scared)

I think the closest comp to this would be something like Baba Is You. It's nowhere near as good as Baba, absolutely nothing is, Baba is probably the best puzzle game of its kind ever created, but it does have a little bit of that same spark that Baba has. The puzzle solutions aren't quite as emergent as Baba's - there's usually one way to get through each puzzle - but every puzzle has that little spark of ingenuity that makes for a great puzzle. Surprising interactions between monsters and environment and solutions that lie just outside what the eye can obviously spot at a glance creates a fair bit of frustration, just enough to give you that great 'aha!' moment when you realize what you can actually do with the mechanical parts that each level gives you. Every monster does it own thing, and you have to figure out how to use the beans you're given to create the right monsters and deploy them at the right time to achieve your objective.

I don't know how far I'll be able to get in this game - I'm going to have to chip away at this one pretty slowly over time, a couple of puzzles every now and then when I feel like it, but I'm excited to work on it because it does have that element of not simply being a series of chores to be worked on like some other games of this type, but a series of specifically tailored challenges to be pondered over. The different mechanics of each monster make every level feel unique and worth tackling.

https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/a/user_image/5/7/3/AAA-H0AADapV.jpg

(Pictured: some more stuff that I haven't gotten to yet. I don't understand, and I'm terrified of what this game will do to me if I get this far.)

I wasn't sure if I should include this game on my list since I didn't see that much of it - I'm not even really in the midgame yet - but what I've played of it I was pretty excited by so I felt like it was worth including on the list, especially due to its obscurity.

Next up: This game has a fucking BANGER of a theme that is in the ongoing VGMC.