Understand is a remarkable puzzle game inspired by the likes of The Witness and Zendo. We need more people like the Understand dev who build upon exceptional but niche genres which otherwise all too often never receive a follow-up.

Anyway, the premise in Understand is delightfully simple: each level consists of a couple of screens with a common but hidden ruleset. Your task is to draw a path on each screen which satisfies these rules, so early on the challenge is almost entirely in discerning the hidden rules.

For this you get various bits of feedback. The game tells you how many rules there are, and when you draw a path it tells you which rules it fulfills. The first screen in each level shows you a valid path which fulfills all rules, and the next few screens are cleverly designed to teach by example. So you'll use deduction and trial & error to draw paths and uncover the rules.

Eventually the levels occasionally become difficult enough that just discerning the rules isn't enough, and finding a valid path given the rules becomes difficult, too. That's unfortunate as the meta puzzle of discovering the rules is more interesting than banging your head against hard puzzles, which feels a bit like facing a boss fight in a puzzle game or a puzzle sequence in a shooter. Fortunately these cases are rather rare. And this is less of a concern if you aren't a perfectionist and so don't feel the need to complete long games; or if you don't mind asking for help or looking up solutions for <5% of levels. On that note, there are lots of Steam guides which spoil all the rules for each level. Finding paths for specific hard screens is harder, but e.g. the game's forums are active enough to help for that, too.

Anyway, as is to be expected of the genre, there are a number of regions with various puzzle mechanics, and by the end the game has explored the potential space of "rules about paths" more fully than one might have thought possible. Each region ends in a meta puzzle which plays with the more fundamental rules of the game. Given the game's premise, levels don't particularly build on one another, so the level selection is delightfully unconstrained, in that solving a level often unlocks multiple others, and until you almost reach 100%, you always have access to multiple levels to choose from.

Incidentally, the game is almost exhaustingly big. At ~12 regions à ~11 levels with 5~10 rooms each, that makes for 660~1320 screens in total. That includes lots of tutorial-ish screens, but those are not the majority.

The game starts with a few very easy levels, but soon requires a certain mindset to proceed: similar to the 2-4-6 task in psychology, it's often trivially easy to find a path that fulfills all rules on the first few screens, at which point one might be convinced one knows the rules, even if they're actually something else entirely. Coming up with hypotheses to falsify goes much farther.

My impression of Understand went through a few phases. I was immediately enamored at the resemblance to The Witness, a game I love. Once I managed to solve a few levels purely with trial & error without understanding the rules, my initial infatuation turned to skepticism - was I expecting too much of this dev? Being able to advance without understanding is a frustrating experience in a game with this title. I eventually overcame that frustration, and came to enjoy the game a great deal more, once I went back through the earlier levels I'd solved and actually tried to articulate the rules I'd discovered in writing. Sometimes I even discovered that the actual rules were even simpler than I'd initially thought.

Very difficult screens became another point of frustration, but not an insurmountable one. Same with a few levels with rules which seemed "too complicated" - three simple rules are easier and more enjoyable to discern than one complex rule. And finally, in case of a few regions where finding a path given the known rules was still challenging, I wished the game had in-game paint tools (à la Tametsi); instead I had to use screenshots plus an image editor.

Anyway, as I played more, I eventually understood that this game was not a fluke, and that its dev was competent. Puzzle games like this truly begin to shine once you've developed trust in the dev. And indeed, when this game works, you feel like one god communicating with another, i.e. the dev. Sometimes the solution to a screen, or the rules in a level, even felt like a clever joke, or a great way to subvert expectations.

Ultimately, Understand is a remarkably ambitious game which falls only very slightly short of its grand ambition. Easily a favorite.

Understand is a remarkable puzzle game inspired by the likes of The Witness and Zendo. We need more people like the Understand dev who build upon exceptional but niche genres which otherwise all too often never receive a follow-up. Anyway, the premise in Understand is delightfully simple: each level consists of a couple of screens with a common but hidden ruleset. Your task is to draw a path on each screen which satisfies these rules, so early on the challenge is almost entirely in discerning the hidden rules. For this you get various bits of feedback. The game tells you how many rules there are, and when you draw a path it tells you which rules it fulfills. The first screen in each level shows you a valid path which fulfills all rules, and the next few screens are cleverly designed to teach by example. So you'll use deduction and trial & error to draw paths and uncover the rules. Eventually the levels occasionally become difficult enough that just discerning the rules isn't enough, and finding a valid path given the rules becomes difficult, too. That's unfortunate as the meta puzzle of discovering the rules is more interesting than banging your head against hard puzzles, which feels a bit like facing a boss fight in a puzzle game or a puzzle sequence in a shooter. Fortunately these cases are rather rare. And this is less of a concern if you aren't a perfectionist and so don't feel the need to complete long games; or if you don't mind asking for help or looking up solutions for <5% of levels. On that note, there are lots of Steam guides which spoil all the rules for each level. Finding paths for specific hard screens is harder, but e.g. the game's forums are active enough to help for that, too. Anyway, as is to be expected of the genre, there are a number of regions with various puzzle mechanics, and by the end the game has explored the potential space of "rules about paths" more fully than one might have thought possible. Each region ends in a meta puzzle which plays with the more fundamental rules of the game. Given the game's premise, levels don't particularly build on one another, so the level selection is delightfully unconstrained, in that solving a level often unlocks multiple others, and until you almost reach 100%, you always have access to multiple levels to choose from. Incidentally, the game is almost exhaustingly big. At ~12 regions à ~11 levels with 5~10 rooms each, that makes for 660~1320 screens in total. That includes lots of tutorial-ish screens, but those are not the majority. The game starts with a few very easy levels, but soon requires a certain mindset to proceed: similar to the 2-4-6 task in psychology, it's often trivially easy to find a path that fulfills all rules on the first few screens, at which point one might be convinced one knows the rules, even if they're actually something else entirely. Coming up with hypotheses to falsify goes much farther. My impression of Understand went through a few phases. I was immediately enamored at the resemblance to The Witness, a game I love. Once I managed to solve a few levels purely with trial & error without understanding the rules, my initial infatuation turned to skepticism - was I expecting too much of this dev? Being able to advance without understanding is a frustrating experience in a game with this title. I eventually overcame that frustration, and came to enjoy the game a great deal more, once I went back through the earlier levels I'd solved and actually tried to articulate the rules I'd discovered in writing. Sometimes I even discovered that the actual rules were even simpler than I'd initially thought. Very difficult screens became another point of frustration, but not an insurmountable one. Same with a few levels with rules which seemed "too complicated" - three simple rules are easier and more enjoyable to discern than one complex rule. And finally, in case of a few regions where finding a path given the known rules was still challenging, I wished the game had in-game paint tools (à la Tametsi); instead I had to use screenshots plus an image editor. Anyway, as I played more, I eventually understood that this game was not a fluke, and that its dev was competent. Puzzle games like this truly begin to shine once you've developed trust in the dev. And indeed, when this game works, you feel like one god communicating with another, i.e. the dev. Sometimes the solution to a screen, or the rules in a level, even felt like a clever joke, or a great way to subvert expectations. Ultimately, Understand is a remarkably ambitious game which falls only very slightly short of its grand ambition. Easily a favorite.