Comment by Twirrim

> After reading the linked article, and the comments here I still have zero clue about the game

A video is worth a thousand words, and there's a video at the very beginning of the article. Did you watch the video?

You control a character on a grid and you have to push sausages around the grid in order to grill them (some of the floor tiles are grill tiles). That's the core game. But the sausages roll and you can't let a given side touch a grill more than once. And the grid is space constrained - you can accidentally push a sausage off the grid and it will fall into an abyss and you have to start over. The puzzles are very difficult because there is so much complexity that stacks:

- Your character can strafe and push things, but your character is also 2 tiles wide and can pivot and swing a fork (and the swing action can push things)

- sausages only roll along one axis, otherwise they slide

- sausages can be stacked into the 3rd dimension which means there's also gravity

- if a sausage falls on your character's head you can move it around and rotate it

- etc.

The game is about rolling sausages over grills to cook them on both sides. However, that's completely unrelated to why it's so acclaimed.

This game introduces a very small set of controls and mechanics (you basically only have the arrow keys, and initially can just move around), and combines it with minimally small, yet surprisingly hard puzzles. Every puzzles is distilled to its smallest form, and involves a genuinely satisfying eureka moment.

The game then explores every possible hidden way to use the minimal set of mechanics introduced, before introducing a new mechanic (e.g. early on you'll be able to suddenly 'stab' you sausages which allows you to move them around differently. So you become a master of the game as you progress.

The problem for new players is that it's deceptively difficult to solve even the simplest puzzles + it encourages you to explore and learn how things work instead of giving you hints. This makes inexperienced players abandon it way before it fully reveals itself (which takes many hours into the game).

What I suggest is if you are new and are frustrated, find a Youtuber that solved it so that you can look at what they did. This way you won't get stuck to the point of leaving it, while still allowing you to fully enjoy it.

The problem is, the ways that it's great are hard to put into words and explain for someone unfamiliar with the game. At least, not in a succinct way. At the most basic level it's just block pushing puzzles ("Sokoban").

Sokoban is a common word within puzzle game fans and devs. That article wasn't written for people that didn't like those kinds of puzzles in the first place.

Almost anybody who grew up with video games in the 80s played Sokoban and knows exactly what that refers to. It was THE puzzle game in the early days of video games... that and maybe millipede.

> It would surely sell more if people would actually explain what the game is, without using niche words like "sokoban".

Sure, sure. Here's the annotated second paragraph from TFA:

  When game designer <Stephen Lavelle> [0] (Increpare Games) released Stephen's Sausage Roll back in April 2016, it was accompanied by <a trailer> [1] that showed almost nothing about the game, yet word still spread quickly. Puzzle developers and fans praised the game for its impeccable design, teasing out layers of deep puzzling and mind-expanding discoveries from so few puzzle elements. It was also renowned for its uncompromising, yet always fair, difficulty curve, with immensely challenging puzzles from the very start. These sentiments are still held to this day, as this beloved sausage-pushing sokoban continues to influence new generations of puzzle developers, <inspiring some of the best sokoban games> [3] ever made and introducing "Sausage-likes” to the puzzle vernacular.

Clicking link [3] leads us to a page that has this as its first paragraph:

  Sokoban games, also known as block-pushing or box-pushing games, are turn-based puzzle games in which you control a character pushing or moving objects around on a grid. The genre has origins in the 1982 game Sokoban, designed by Hiroyuki Imabayashi, in which you have to push boxes around a warehouse onto designated targets. The japanese word 倉庫番 (“sōkoban”) translates to “warehouse keeper”.

Incidentally, link [3] is repeated in the final paragraph of TFA, which I will also copy and annotate:

  Learn more about Stephen's Sausage Roll in <our database of thinky games> [4], where you can also find <similar games> [5] and some of the <best sokoban games ever made>. [3]

Link [4] is pretty clear about what the game is. Did you bother to click it in order to "[l]earn more about Stephen's Sausage Roll", as it invites you to do?

[0] <https://increpare.com/>

[1] <https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lCNqYLGwqxU>

[3] <https://thinkygames.com/lists/best-sokoban-games/>

[4] <https://thinkygames.com/games/stephens-sausage-roll/>

[5] <https://thinkygames.com/games/stephens-sausage-roll/similar/>

> It would surely sell more if people would actually explain what the game is

And even more if figuring out how to buy it wasn't a challenging puzzle in its own right.

[dead]