Хидден гем которому до 5 звезд не хватает только того, что он страдает от самой частой проблемы любой головоломки - очевидных для автора, но не для игрока ответов. Прошел на одном дыхании, но под конец заебался и все же подсмотрел энное количество ответов. Игра очень сильно завязана на английском языке, и если вы не носитель, то сложность возрастает в разы, я продирался со словарями и фонетическими поисковиками, было больно но стоило того. Неевклидовость игрового пространства вносит приятную нотку в атмосферу игры, делая ее еще более абстрактной и мозговыносящей.

I do love a puzzle game all about learning rules through doing, rather than having thins spelled out to you, and Lingo fulfills the brief for this very well. It's all about words and the (mainly) cubes you have to fill in have a bunch of different rules attached to them based on pretty much everything about them.

Some of the puzzles are a bit hit or miss, either with multiple solutions or answers that don't quite fit the rule but I suppose that's kind of to be expected with around 2000+ puzzles across multiple levels. Generally it's a good time, and presented a number of Eureka moments when away from the game.

The game does have a big downside though and that's the map. Portals I can deal with, non-Euclidean geometry I cannot - too many times you're thrown around in circles or ending up back where you started just from a little exploration, and for me brought about a very uneasy nausea. It's worse in some levels than others (and there's one at the very end that I immediately noped out of) but it left such a sour note as even with basic colour blocks and cubes, I think it would have been a fun map to just be able to explore normally.

Hear me out: this is the best puzzle game of all time

Ok not really. But it is way better than I was expecting. I'm not really exaggerating though - there were times where I felt like it was the best puzzle game of all time. Some of these individual puzzles are blindingly creative and the way all the mechanics work together is incredibly well thought out and fun to decipher.

Heavily inspired by The Witness and Antichamber, but I really wish it was more of the former and less of the latter. I don't think the non-Euclidean layout adds anything to the game and serves only to frustrate the player. It doesn't work with the word puzzles in most cases and just makes it difficult to navigate.

My other big complaint is that your objective is kind of unclear the whole time. You basically spend your entire playthrough running around aimlessly in search of new areas and puzzles, which isn't the worst thing ever, but it's a little worse than if I knew what I was working towards. Compare the lasers/mountain from The Witness; there's nothing like that here, not that clear anyway.

But I seriously can't stress enough how good the puzzles in this are. The extremely simple clue/answer word puzzle format is pushed to its absolute limits and I'm genuinely in awe of the creativity on display. I haven't even really dug into level 2 (a post-release expansion that stands alone from the original game, but is included in it), but what I've seen of it has been very clever as well. I want to try out the community maps too.

If you like puzzles, I really strongly recommend this game. If you liked The Witness, I recommend it even more (but don't expect something quite that good).

I have never played a game with so many google tabs open and sticky notes on my desk oh my Lord. Don't go into this game unprepared.

Lingo was alright. Another classic case of "puzzle game that starts chill and fun and ends up completely unhinged and insane by the end". I was able to solve a lot by myself, but some of those puzzles near the end I don't get the logic AT ALL on how some of those puzzles are solvable. Shoutout to the like three YouTubers who have went through this game and uploaded their footage online, y'all are the real heroes.

Maybe I'll come back to this and clean up achievements some day, but for now I'm happy to mark it as done.

DISCLAIMER:
This review is entirely for my own sake. You are welcome to read it but it may or may not contain spoilers for the whole game.

NOTE: The time played is the one recorded at time of review and it includes all main levels and a few custom maps (which may or may not have taken longer)

Have you ever vibed with a game as soon as you started it? I hadn't felt like this with a game since The Witness, and yet this time it might have been even stronger.
From the non-euclidian environment (aka being teleported all over the place and having to create a mental map of connections and shortcuts), through the rule discovery segments (which take place all throughout the whole game and not just at the beginning since you keep learning more rules and finding new puzzle elements even in the "post-game"), to the puzzles themselves (which always felt creative and fresh, even if sometimes too easy and other times unfairly difficult) I loved every second of it.
Imagine my surprise when while doing clean-up I find out there's a Level 2 that is even bigger than the first. And then there are more smaller official levels and once I'm done with those I keep wanting more and more, so I do what I never do. I turn to community content, and it's actually good?
I can't get this game out of my head. I was waiting to finally be done with it before writing a review, but it just wasn't happening and I had to get some of these thoughs on paper before I exploded.

Overall, I can't recommend this game enough for puzzle fans. I'll be singing its praise for years to come.