Zof

Wow... Just finished Zof and it is a very well done puzzler. Had a friend not pointed it out, I would have missed the experience entirely. Pete Wilkins has done a great job of putting together a series of unrelated puzzles (some easy, some very complicated) that give you a true feeling of satisfaction when you solve one. The reward for completing each puzzle (or puzzle area) is a Steam Achievement plus entry into the next world. There is no story and none is needed. The game consists of diverse (and often fantastic) landscapes done in a variety of artistic styles. The sound track is primarily environmental sounds and if you take your headphones off, you are apt to miss important aural clues. The mechanisms to move between the early puzzles are brilliant and, often, I laughed in delight as I was transported between worlds. Some puzzle games without a story can be repetitive or unrewarding. Not so with Zof! It is a unique game that is hard to describe but it will challenges your mi...

This game needs something, anything, to get the player going. I get the joy of working out a puzzle, but when there is literally nothing explained (not even controls), then this unfortunately gets a big nope from me.

A somewhat visually impressive puzzle game that seeks to explain nothing to the player. An admirable idea that only succeeds if the game can manage to properly teach the player what they do through subtle clues, which it failed to do for me, either through my own ineptitude or the game's. Several puzzles also have needlessly long animations or processes that do little outside of wasting the player's time.

The game is BEAUTIFUL and you can just feel the amount of work that went into creating it, so why the thumbs down? Some of the puzzles are logical and you know what you have to accomplish. However, there are others that just don't make any sense. Even after looking at a walkthrough hint you say to yourself WHY would I ever even think of doing that? For example: Let's say that you walk into a cave to explore it and you just can't find ANYTHING that gives you an idea of what you should do next. (However, if you walk into the cave Backwards....)<<<<WHY would ANYONE even THINK of doing that<<<Do you get my point? There is just a tad TOO MUCH of that kind of thing that EVEN AFTER WATCHING A WALK-THROUGH, you say to yourself...WTF; Why would Anyone even Think of doing that??? So, for me, there was just Too Much (WTF) and not enough enjoyment. And, on top of that, I'm now 'stuck' in a bug that keeps me in some transporting video loop and only ControlAltDelete will let me out of the game. ...

Zof is a Myst like puzzle game where you're thrown into the environment without any rhyme or reason. Unlike Myst, where there's a story that's somewhat loosely tying everything together, Zof has no story at all. Just puzzle solving, which is okay for me but if you demand some kind of story, well... there is none. Pros: Simple controls Graphics are good Puzzles range from easy to very hard Good animations Non-linear Well optimized All of the puzzles are logical Cons: Only one ending Fairly short Some puzzles require a lot of back and forth walking I have no technical issues with this game, it performed flawlessly. I would say about 90% of the puzzles in this game I manged to solve without any help. About 7% I solved with a hint or two and the remaining 3% I had to look up the answer. Even with the answer, it was a little bit difficult because each time you play this game, the answers change, which I prefer. Most of the puzzles were well thought out and logical with the exception of o...

I'm going to assume that you are already a fan of first person puzzle games. I'm even going to assume that you have some experience with lesser known lower budget / amateur first person puzzle games, or else why are you reading reviews for a game like Zof? With those assumptions aside: most of this game is very good. It has the cryptic mystery of something like Myst, along with a more open world design of something like The Talos Principle. Most of its puzzles feel legitimately perplexing, but make sense and feel rewarding when you've figure them out. There are a couple puzzles/solutions that... just feel bad though. Particularly there is a late game puzzle involving pressure plates on a bridge that just feels completely unsatisfying. Even once I understood what I was supposed to be doing, it just felt finicky, tedious, and a bit silly. Thankfully, we've already established that you are familiar with amateur / low budget first person puzzle games! You already know if you are w...

Myst minus story, on a modern engine (Unreal) that provides full 3D movement - with invert mouse option! So many of the reviews below capture what is so great about this game, so it feels like anything I write here is plagiarism, so I will just point out what were the highlights for me. Zof essentially recaptures that elusive magical feeling I got from puzzle-solving in Myst. It is reminiscent of Myst in art (although Zof sometimes tends towards the more surreal) and puzzle design. I loved every minute of it, including the frustrating parts where I was stuck for a long time, because after solving them on my own, the feeling of satisfaction more than made up for it. I felt that the puzzles were all very fair. Zof is definitely one of my favorite games. I strongly recommend it and I can't wait for Zof 2!

I was absolutely delighted with this game. Solving all its puzzles was so much fun. [b]Puzzles[/b] It might share some graphic similarities with the Myst games, but Zof is in fact a pure puzzle game. The only thing there is to do in the game is solving puzzles while going from one puzzle area to another. There is no story, and there are no notes or written hints to be found anywhere. Even the game menu is only made of a few symbols. It is left to the player to carefully observe its surroundings and notice any details that would help to figure out how to proceed. Some puzzles will be obvious but most will require us to tinker with the different constructs at our disposal. Walk that way, push buttons, pull levers or turn wheels and observe how the environment has changed. Understanding first the mechanics of a puzzle works a lot on trials and experimentations, then we tinker some more to input the solution. The feeling of accomplishment we get as we finally understand a puzzle is j...

I like puzzle games, but just couldn't get into this one. No story or lore whatsoever--only puzzles. Which isn't necessarily a deal breaker for me (I really enjoyed The Witness). The difference is that the Witness does an excellent job teaching you the puzzles by starting simple and steadily ramping up the complexity. Zof doesn’t. You’re thrown into situations and left to tediously guess-and-check how things work and what the goal is (often involving a lot of back-and-forth and slow animations). Even the settings menu leaves you to guess-and-check what things mean. Rand Miller once said that when you look up the solution to a good puzzle, you think, “Why didn’t I see that? I’m such an idiot!”, and when you look up the solution to a bad puzzle, you think, “What were the devs thinking, they expected me to get THAT?” I felt none of the former and a lot of the latter when trying Zof.

Zof is exactly what an investigative first person puzzle game should be. All puzzles can be solved by finding clear environmental clues or piercing together the processes the game wants you to follow, and it toes the ever-elusive line between difficulty and intuitiveness very well. If you're ever stuck, there is an official "hint-through" that explains how to proceed, which I had to use two or three times, but the game is pretty much always intuitive and keeps you thinking out of the box. It's never too difficult, but still challenging, and it uses some interesting ideas. What impressed me was that the game always remains logical. Even after looking at the walktrough a few times, I wasn't frustrated, but just thinking "Ah, yeah. Probably could've figured that out myself". So many games don't manage to do that, but Zof's rules actually make sense. It's a shame this game is not more well known, but it is a hidden first person puzzle gem. As a lover of this genre, I was impressed and I ...