Islands of Insight is shaping up to be one of the most ambitious puzzle games in recent memory. Although it thematically resembles classics like The Talos Principle and Myst, the game’s visually spectacular open world is shockingly dense, boasting around 10,000 puzzles of varying complexity. The open-world puzzle-solving gameplay is mixed with an RPG-style progression system and a shared-world MMO-lite approach, setting Islands of Insight apart from the more typically focused and solitary puzzle games that dominate the genre.
Game Rant spent some time exploring every available corner of a demo build of Islands of Insight solving hundreds of puzzles, finding countless hidden objects, and even sequence breaking on one occasion that triggered special dialogue for players who can’t help their curiosity. Due to the limited population of the preview, we didn’t get to see much of the shared world gameplay, but having one or two other players around while we solved puzzles did mix things up a bit in interesting ways.
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Islands of Insight Is Non-Stop Satisfying Puzzle Solving
The density of puzzles and hidden objects scattered around Islands of Insight is staggering, but in practice is rarely overwhelming. Most puzzles can be solved in a matter of seconds, while hidden objects are often in locations a curious player would reasonably expect to find something. Players are rarely ever more than a few paces away from something to do, and this constant stream of mostly quickly resolved puzzles is immensely satisfying.
There are dozens of types of challenges to solve, each demanding players flex a different part of their brain. The ones we found most fun were the perspective-based puzzles that had us interacting with the environment. Armillary Rings puzzles, for example, require players to shoot a line through a ball of rings so that the line passes through every gold ring while avoiding the purple rings. Sometimes the rings are moving, and other times the solution requires players to stand in one very specific location. Most puzzles can have subtle rule variations like this from time to time, and it helps soften the repetition. Another common perspective puzzle is the Skydrop: a group of glowing orbs in the sky that, when viewed from a specific distance and angle, will resolve into a perfect circle.
On the other end of the puzzle spectrum are the Logic Cubes. These are very frequently found throughout the world and interacting with them presents players with a grid where they can color each space either black or white to satisfy the win condition. Logic Cubes have a large variety of rulesets and objectives, sometimes taking mere seconds to solve while others are very large grids with multiple rules that heavily discourage guessing. These have varying difficulty levels that are clearly marked, so players who aren’t in the mood for being completely stumped can easily avoid the more extreme puzzle challenges.
Islands of Insight’s Open-World RPG Elements Are a Nice Touch
Within minutes of hopping into the game, players are presented with a gorgeous vista that shows off the world they’re about to explore. The game’s geography is dotted with floating islands like Tears of the Kingdom, and this airborne theme benefits the game in numerous ways. Floating islands off in the distance are a great way to tease players with future content, and each island can have a wholly separate theme from its surrounding islands. The world opens up quite a bit once players unlock the ability to fly, and in one case, we managed to land on an island before “unlocking” it. The developers appear to have accounted for this though, as we received a popup message congratulating us on our craftiness.
Solving numerous puzzles of a certain type will award progress toward a mastery point for that type, while player levels are gained by obtaining mastery points across any combination of puzzles. Along the way, a separate currency is gained for each puzzle completion or hidden object found, and there are repeatable quests that reward large chunks of this currency. As players level up, they’ll gain increasing access to a skill tree where nodes can be unlocked with that currency. This skill tree branches off into three broader paths focused on either exploration, logic puzzles, or open-world puzzles.
A skill tree sounds strange for a puzzle game, but each upgrade feels meaningful and motivates further puzzle-solving. One skill might increase a player’s flying speed or unlock a charged super jump, while another allows them to paint fill the cells in a logic cube puzzle or give them more chances to request puzzle hints. The upgrades aren’t game-breaking, but it’s a welcome sense of progression compared to most puzzle games where progression is simply a matter of reaching the next area.
Islands of Insight’s Character Customization and Social Aspects Have Potential
Islands of Insight doesn’t have the most comprehensive character creator, but it does tie in nicely with the core game loop. As players gain mastery, they’ll unlock loads of new cosmetic options in the form of wings, particle trails, tattoos, and titles, and players can alter their character’s appearance and even body type at any time to try these out. The cosmetic “reward track” is fixed and can be easily tracked, so there’s a subtle push to do a few more puzzles knowing that we’re just one rank away from that new pair of wings.
Although we only ever saw one or two other players during our time in Islands of Insight, the multiplayer component did add to the experience. At one point, we arrived at a “dungeon” at the same time as another player, and we both picked up a few puzzle solutions or hidden object locations by observing each other. Approaching the game’s 10,000 puzzles might be a lot more fun in a cooperative setting, but there’s also the potential for trolling and griefing. Since many puzzles involve careful use of perspective and precise camera angles, it’s not hard to imagine bad actors standing around trying to obscure solutions or even spoil puzzle solutions for players trying to solve them.
So far though, Islands of Insight is brimming with potential for fans of puzzle games. There hasn’t quite been anything of this scale and scope in the genre, and the shared world multiplayer approach is an experiment worth trying.
Islands of Insight releases February 13 on PC.