Games that trust players to create their own solutions

There are many video games that insist you hold hands. Whether it's through ubiquitous waypoints, companions that not-so-helpfully point out the solution to a puzzle if it takes you more than a minute to solve, or cutscenes that tell you exactly how to fight an enemy before you even fire at them, it can be frustrating when a game doesn't trust you to figure things out on your own.

This is not a problem for these next games. Sure, they still have a tutorial to show you the ropes, and occasionally throw in a dot along the way to indicate something important, and maybe explain the best time to craft something in particular, but mostly trust your players to create their own solutions. It can come through crafting, creative thinking, or mastering multiple systems, but it all depends on you to reach the end goal.

Satisfactory

Sophisticated systems built to your specifications

Satisfactory is a game that gives you one big task – broken down into smaller steps – and then lets you figure out how to complete it. You are an unnamed pioneer sent to a planet that is loaded with resources. You will then be asked to refine these resources for a company called FICSIT and then send them off-planet in a space elevator.

While FICSIT guides you through the initial process of gathering materials and building components, the actual structure of your refinery and its eventual automation is entirely up to you. Efficiency, organization, and creative thinking are all positive qualities to incorporate into your design process. Satisfactory is a complex game full of complexities and opportunities for innovation, but all of them are up to you to discover and implement.

Planet Crafter

Make this ugly planet home

The bottom line Planet Crafter it's right in the title. Your job is to take the dead rock you start on and turn it into a living, breathing world. To do so, you'll harvest resources, build machines to produce energy and oxygen, and eventually introduce plants and animals into the ecosystem.

Much like Satisfactory, goal in Planet Crafter it's big, but the process of how you achieve it is largely up to you. This doubles once you complete the first planet and advance to its two moons (and later to Humble DLC). While the process of terraforming moons is the same, you'll have all the tools and components unlocked ahead of time, giving you the freedom to terraform as you see fit.

The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom

Ultrahand All together

If there's one game that exemplifies the “build your own solution” idea, this is it The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom. While Breath of the Wild also offers great freedom in solving hundreds of puzzles, Tears of the Kingdom is on another level, almost entirely due to the introduction of the Ultrahand mechanic.

The Ultrahand allows Link to lift, move, rotate and tie objects together, literally opening the door for you to build anything from a bridge to a hovercraft to a Flying Dutchman ship that actually flies. There are some limits to the size of what you can create (it's still a Switch 1 game, after all), but other than that you're only limited by your imagination. You can imagine that with a vast open world like Hyrule, there are countless ways to solve any problem, from overcoming a tricky obstacle to solving a complex puzzle.

Grandma is you

The goal is to win

A slightly different approach, Baba is you It requires you to create a solution, but in this case you create the rules of the game, which you then use to complete each level. You do this by shifting words—usually nouns—at each level and joining them with a verb modifier (like “is” or “has”) to create a rule. The level then works with these new rules.

For example, each level begins with the “Baba is You” rule, which puts you in control of the game's small protagonist, Baba. The victory condition is usually “Flag is a win”, meaning if you reach the flag, you win. However, these words can be moved. You can create a “Rock is You” rule and suddenly you control the rock. Creating a “Rock is Win” rule means that if you touch a rock, you win the level. While the early challenges set up the solution, the game expands its scope very quickly and soon there are multiple paths to victory, all based on how you interpret the rules of the game to suit your needs.

Long darkness

Intensive unaided survival

There are survival games and then there are some survival games; games where you not only have to find food and water, but also manage your body temperature and calorie intake. Long darkness is an example of the latter. This is an intense survival simulation where every decision you make must be carefully calculated to ensure the best chance of survival. Even then, everything can go wrong.

The matter with Long darkness is that you can't just produce whatever you want whenever you want. You will need materials and often a workbench or forge to craft what you need. When the going gets tough, you won't always have everything on hand to create the ideal solution. This is where improvisation comes in. You may not be able to build a coat to keep you warm at night, but if you start a fire and keep it burning, it might be enough. You may not have first aid tools to treat the wound, but if you can make a bandage out of some moss, that's enough for now. It's moments like these when the game looks at you and says, “You're gonna do it.” How well you do this will determine how long you survive the harsh Canadian tundra.

Minecraft

Come up with some problems, then come up with solutions

Minecraft it doesn't so much present you with problems to solve (although it can, depending on the game mode you choose and the mods you install), but instead gives you a huge world made up of materials and lets you do whatever you want with them. The second part is key: do whatever you want with them. There is a world at your disposal and it is up to you to decide what you will do in it. It's the ultimate sandbox.

Your goal can be as simple as building a shack or as complex as creating a huge underwater mansion that grows sugar cane. Any task you set can be accomplished if you have the determination to see it through. The bigger the project, the more work it takes, but there's nothing wrong with it Minecraft that will hold you back from creating anything in your imagination, and that includes dealing with all the obstacles you encounter along the way.

Raft

Survive At Sea

Similar to Long darkness in some respects, while in others quite different, Raft will cast you adrift on the vast endless ocean. You start out with nothing more than a 2×2 piece of wood to float on and a grappling hook to throw to collect materials that float by. You will then use these materials to expand your raft and it can be crafted very quickly.

While Raft it more or less guides you through the campaign – which bosses to fight, which locations to explore, etc. – there's no timer for when you'll tackle these tasks. Instead, you can just work on your vessel, increasing its size, adding fishing nets, a steering wheel, and more. These power-ups (and how you use them) will solve your current problems like finding food or fending off sharks, allowing you to focus on progressing through the campaign when you're ready.

Fantastic Contraption VR

Set it up in your living room and then set it free

Let's wrap things up with something a little unconventional. Instead of making solution building part of the experience, v A fantastic machinethat's the whole game. If you play through VR, either solo or in a group, you'll be presented with a puzzle. This usually involves moving across an area or moving an object from one location to another. Then, using a combination of beams, wheels, and more, it's your job to create a device that can accomplish the task at hand.

Once you build and release your device, you can't control it, so any functionality it requires needs to be built right into the design. However, with the perspective adjustment possible in VR, it's easy to make small changes to balance or weight to make things work as best they can. A fantastic machine is the kind of game that's perfect for VR, allowing you to design any solution you can think of with your own hands and then watch it play out in action.