Comment by werdnapk
14 hours ago
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.
14 hours ago
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.
I only know what "sokoban" means because of the sokoban levels in NetHack.
So is there any way to explain it to the people who grew up in the half century since then?
Puzzles involving pushing blocks around a grid, where most of the challenge comes from the constrained motion. Blocks might get stuck if you push them into a corner, for example. It might be necessary to move things in a certain order, which isn't obvious at first.
"Sokoban" translates to "warehouse keeper". The original game was about moving boxes around in a crowded warehouse.
LMGTFY. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sokoban
Sure, though they're already familiar with it too.
https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5758783607eaa0...
https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/BlockPuzzle
Complaining that games may be described as "like Sokoban" is kind of like complaining that they might be described as "real-time strategy".
Being familiar with the concept isn't the same as being familiar with the term. The point that was being made by the parent comment that originally mentioned the term was that the game does not do a good job describing what it actually is to people who aren't already familiar with it. People who have never played a game in their life will know what the words "real", "time", and "strategy" mean, so I don't know how you can claim that it's anywhere close to the same thing.
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