Prose & Codes is an indie puzzle game. Decode the wit, wisdom, and wonder of literature's finest works through deceptively simple ciphers. Decode 350 hand-selected excerpts from literary classics both well-known and obscure and get a taste of 7 beloved genres, from nostalgic children's stories to bone-chilling horror.
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i feel like reviewing a game before i've finished it is cheating BUT i'm having a lot of fun with this! i love a puzzle game and i've been wanting to get more into classics so this is ending up as a way for me to find recommendations for what to read.
there's a lot of little design things that i really enjoy about this. dividing book excerpts by genre helps specifically for the recommendation thing i mentioned above — i know what genres i like/want to read, so i go over to those and solve those puzzles for recs. but also it's fun to solve the ones for genres i'm not usually that interested in! also i'm a big fan of the progressive difficulty option! it's a really good way to keep my silly brain interested by giving me something easy to grasp at the beginning and then ramping up the challenge as i progress. it's enrichment!
also i have to mention the audio in this. the music is so nice — i did mute it when i was playing yesterday because i had a youtube video playing but today i've been playing it with the music + sfx on. there's something so nice about the piano that activates the Lock In part of my brain. i could sink hours into this game and not notice.
there's a lot of little design things that i really enjoy about this. dividing book excerpts by genre helps specifically for the recommendation thing i mentioned above — i know what genres i like/want to read, so i go over to those and solve those puzzles for recs. but also it's fun to solve the ones for genres i'm not usually that interested in! also i'm a big fan of the progressive difficulty option! it's a really good way to keep my silly brain interested by giving me something easy to grasp at the beginning and then ramping up the challenge as i progress. it's enrichment!
also i have to mention the audio in this. the music is so nice — i did mute it when i was playing yesterday because i had a youtube video playing but today i've been playing it with the music + sfx on. there's something so nice about the piano that activates the Lock In part of my brain. i could sink hours into this game and not notice.
This game features a big package of ciphers that are extracts from books coming from public domain (depending on where you live). As a result, aside from solving them, you can take it as a recommendation wizard for famous books of old times. The presentation is decent and it serves as a good podcast game.