Played a fair bit of this back at uni with friends as a party game, but recently me and a friend decided to plough through it and get all the bombs done up to section 6.
Keep Talking is quite a unique game, in that it fills a co-op puzzle niche that I've not really seen anything else attempt to fill. Most of the co-op puzzle games I've played have been more like escape-room like experiences, where you piece your collective information together to solve puzzles in a civilized and relatively slow-paced manner. Keep Talking, however, is an absolute whirlwind of activity. None of the puzzles are difficult to solve on their own, and instead 100% of the gameplay is on communication, speed and efficiency.
The breakneck pace you're forced to play at has some upsides and downsides. Especially in the later levels it can take a couple of attempts for both players to get back into the swing of things at the start of a play session. However, the intense nature of the game makes it hard to play for an extended period of time, meaning the actual window of time where both players are at their best can actually be frustratingly small. It also feels like some of the later levels encourage you to "cheat"; we ended up playing so much that it was impossible for the bomb operator not to remember a few simple instructions from the manual, and we quickly got into a routine of the operator finding the password module, reading out the first three dials, and then completing the simon module on their own while the expert works through the password. It can feel oddly unsatisfying when you realise you do just remember some of the rules, as it seems to go against the spirit of the game, but it seems pretty unavoidable.
I think the space Keep Talking occupies most succesfully is as a pick up and put down party game, ideally where the bomb operator hasn't played much of it before, and in this space it shines. It's a fun and hectic experience that no other game i know of can deliver. But there is so much late game content which doesn't fit in this model of play, and it's just a bit confusing to work out what the target audience of the more difficult bombs even is.
Keep Talking is quite a unique game, in that it fills a co-op puzzle niche that I've not really seen anything else attempt to fill. Most of the co-op puzzle games I've played have been more like escape-room like experiences, where you piece your collective information together to solve puzzles in a civilized and relatively slow-paced manner. Keep Talking, however, is an absolute whirlwind of activity. None of the puzzles are difficult to solve on their own, and instead 100% of the gameplay is on communication, speed and efficiency.
The breakneck pace you're forced to play at has some upsides and downsides. Especially in the later levels it can take a couple of attempts for both players to get back into the swing of things at the start of a play session. However, the intense nature of the game makes it hard to play for an extended period of time, meaning the actual window of time where both players are at their best can actually be frustratingly small. It also feels like some of the later levels encourage you to "cheat"; we ended up playing so much that it was impossible for the bomb operator not to remember a few simple instructions from the manual, and we quickly got into a routine of the operator finding the password module, reading out the first three dials, and then completing the simon module on their own while the expert works through the password. It can feel oddly unsatisfying when you realise you do just remember some of the rules, as it seems to go against the spirit of the game, but it seems pretty unavoidable.
I think the space Keep Talking occupies most succesfully is as a pick up and put down party game, ideally where the bomb operator hasn't played much of it before, and in this space it shines. It's a fun and hectic experience that no other game i know of can deliver. But there is so much late game content which doesn't fit in this model of play, and it's just a bit confusing to work out what the target audience of the more difficult bombs even is.