What games have you been playing, and what's your opinion on them?

For a month now I've been playing Lingo 2 with some people. (Over) a year ago it took us 88 hours to finish the original (true 100%). In Lingo 2 we're sitting at 41 hours, making good progress every time!

There are two significant differences in core gameplay between the original game and the sequel. In the original, the position and color of the surface each puzzle panel was mounted on conveyed something about how the answer was meant to be derived from the prompt. In order to chain rules, the game had to chain geometry, which was at times confusing. The whole thing was not colorblind friendly either and the rules were often fuzzed a bit and it was hard to tell when. In Lingo 2, all that is gone; puzzle panels are always on little lecterns and their color only conveys whether you can currently solve it or not. Inbetween the prompt and answer spaces, the puzzle panel then displays a string of zero or more symbols that function as operators, describing what kind of associations must be made to transform the prompt into the answer (all symbols are nonstandard so figuring out what they do is part of the challenge!)

Colors still have some meta gameplay use, but the game supports "skins" that can add texture to each material, making them more visually distinct beyond their base color.

The second key difference is letter collection. In Lingo 2, you must find and collect letters of the alphabet in the game's 3D world before you are allowed to use them in puzzle panel answers. This means you start the game with a very limited possible answer space, which expands as you complete more of the game's many hidden areas.

I have mixed feelings about this one. On the one hand, it provides structure to the game progression and encourages exploration. The game also tries to keep players from becoming completely stuck by providing a little visual hint for where each letter is hidden (you only have to use them if you want to). But on the other hand, it can be a little annoying when you have panels all over the place that are colored as unsolvable just because you don't have the right letters for it, even though you, the player, have figured out the answer. If you want to keep solving puzzles you have to revisit areas several times!

So Lingo's charm as a completely open word puzzle world with non-euclidean geometry and the organic feel of its design are somewhat lost, but the improved gameplay does mostly make up for it. We're enjoying it!

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