Games that trust players to build their own solutions

There are many video games that insist on holding your hand. Whether it's through ever-present waypoints, friends who point out the solution to a puzzle if it takes you over a minute to solve it, or scenes that tell you exactly how to fight an enemy before taking a shot, it can be frustrating when a game doesn't trust you to figure things out on your own.

This is not a problem in these other games. Sure, they still have a tutorial to show you the ropes, and sometimes they'll toss in a waypoint to indicate something important, and maybe they'll explain the best time to do a certain craft, but they're largely Trust your players to create their own solutions. This can come through crafting, creative thinking, or mastery of multiple systems, but it all comes down to you reaching the end goal.

Satisfactory

Detailed systems built to your specifications

Satisfactory A game that gives you a big task — broken down into smaller steps — and then lets you figure out how to complete it. You are an unknown pioneer sent to a planet full of resources. You are then asked to refine those resources for a company called FICSIT, and then send them off-planet via space elevator.

While FICSIT will guide you through the initial process of gathering materials and building materials, the actual structure of your refinery and its eventual automation is entirely up to your own design. Efficiency, organization, and creative thinking are all positive traits to incorporate into your design process. Satisfactory It's a complex game with opportunities for complexity and innovation, but it's up to you to discover and implement them all.

The Planet Crafter

Turn this ugly planet into a home

the point of The Planet Crafter It's right there in the name. Your job is to take the lifeless rock you start with and turn it into a living, breathing world. To do so, you'll be harvesting resources, building machines to generate power and produce oxygen, and eventually, introducing plants and animals into the ecosystem.

I like it a lot satisfactory, Aim at The Planet Crafter This is a big one, but the process of how you accomplish it is largely up to you. After you complete the first planet and its two moons (and later, the humble DLC). While the process of terraforming the moon is the same, you'll have all tools and components unlocked ahead of time, giving you free rein to terraform as you see fit.

The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom

Ultrahand It All Together

If there is a game that exemplifies the idea of ​​”building your own solutions”. The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom. While Breath of the Wild It also offers a lot of freedom in how you solve its hundreds of puzzles, Tears of the Kingdom is on the next level, and that's almost entirely due to the introduction of the ultrahand mechanic.

The Ultrahand allows Link to pick up, move, rotate and tether objects in one place, literally opening the door for you to build anything from a bridge to a hovercraft to a Flying Dutchman ship. There are some limits to the size of what you can create (it's still a Switch 1 game, after all), but beyond that, the only thing holding you back is your imagination. As you can imagine, with a huge open world like Hyrule, there are countless ways to solve just about any problem, from overcoming a difficult obstacle to solving a complex puzzle.

He is the Father

The goal is to win

Taking a slightly different approach, You are the Father Asks you to build solutions so to speak, but in this case, you're building gameplay rules that you use to complete each level. You do this by pushing words — usually nouns — around each layer and connecting them with verb modifiers (such as “is” or “has”) to create a rule. The level then works with those new rules.

For example, each level starts with the rule “It's Dad”, which gives you control of the game's little hero, Dad. Basically, “flag is win” is a victory condition, meaning if you reach the flag, you win. However, those words can be moved around. You can create the rule “The rock is you,” and suddenly you're controlling the rock. Creating a “rock is win” rule means touching the rock will win the level. While the initial challenges set the solutions, the game very quickly broadens its scope, and very quickly, there are many paths to victory, all depending on how you reinterpret the rules of the game to suit your needs.

long dark

Sharp existence without help

There are survival games, and then there are those Existence games; Games where you not only have to measure for food and water, but also need to manage your body temperature and calorie consumption. long dark The latter is an example. This is an intense survival simulation where your every decision must be carefully calculated to ensure the best odds of survival. Even then, things can go wrong.

matter of fact long dark It's that you can't craft whatever you want whenever you want. All you need are the materials and usually a workbench or forge. When things get scary, you don't always have everything at hand to create the ideal solution. There comes improvement. Maybe you can't make a coat to keep yourself warm all night, but if you build a fire and keep it burning, that might be enough. Maybe you don't have first aid equipment to treat the wound, but if you can make a bandage out of some moss, that will do for now. It's moments like this where the game looks at you and says, “Get it out.” How well you do will determine how long you survive in the harsh Canadian tundra.

Minecraft

Invent some problems, then invent solutions

Minecraft It doesn't present you with problems to solve (although this may depend on the game mode you choose and any mods you install) as much as it gives you a vast world of materials and what you want to do with them. The second part of that is key: do with them what you will. Here is a world that is at your disposal, and it is up to you to decide what you are going to do within it. This is the ultimate sandbox.

Your goal can be as simple as building a shack or as complex as building a giant underwater mansion cultivating sugarcane. Any task you set for yourself can be accomplished as long as you have the dedication to see it through. The bigger the project, the more work it takes, but there is nothing to it Minecraft That will stop you from creating anything you can imagine, and include solutions to any obstacles you may encounter along the way.

the raft

Living in the ocean

Like long dark In some ways, while in others completely different, the raft Drowns you in the vast, endless ocean. You start with nothing more than a piece of 2×2 wood to float and a hook that you can pull out to collect materials as you float. Then you use those materials to expand your raft, and it can be elaborate very quickly.

While the raft It will more or less guide you through the progress of the campaign – which bosses to fight, which places to explore, and so on – with no timer as you tackle those quests. Instead, you can work on your ship, increasing its size, adding fishing nets, a steering wheel, and more. These upgrades (and how you use them) will solve your moment-to-moment problems, like finding food or fending off sharks, allowing you to focus on progressing through the campaign when you're ready.

Fantastic contraption VR

Build it into your living room, then turn it loose

Let's kick things off with a little off-beat. Instead of building solutions being a part of the experience, Ma Fantastic contraptionThis is the whole game. Played solo or in groups via VR, you are presented with a puzzle. Generally, it involves crossing an area or moving an object from one place to another. Then, using a combination of beams, wheels, and more, your job is to create a contraption that can complete the task set before you.

Once you build your contraption and set it loose, you can't control it, so any functionality it needs needs to be built into the design. However, thanks to the perspective adjustments made possible in VR, it's easy to make minute changes in balance or weight to make things work as well as possible. Fantastic contraption The game is perfect for VR, which allows you to design any solution using your own hands, and then see how it plays out in action.