Indie Rock: Sokobond

You’re an oxygen atom.

I mean, hypothetically, pretend you’re an atom of oxygen.

Don’t worry. It’s not something I mean as an insult, because it’d be a terrible one. “Oi, gas-based prick”, I’d shout. “Why don’t you get breathed in and sustain life already?” or “Fuck off back to the sky!”

So you’re an oxygen atom. Let’s say you want to become a bit of water. Well, you’re going to have to find another two bits of hydrogen to hang out with.

That’s simple enough. Because let’s say as oxygen you’re capable of bonding to two things, so you rock up to each piece of hydrogen to make a lovely little watery chemical cuddle.

I’ve basically just explained how you play Sokobond. [Also GCSE chemistry – Ed.]

But now let’s say you’re a different chemical. You’re Nitrogen. You’ve got three bonds and larger aims. You want to become Hydrazine, because you’re… I dunno. Look, I’m not your careers advisor. You need to become bonded with four hydrogens and another nitrogen, only as soon as you get linked to something you’re stuck dragging it around and there are a bunch of walls in the way that you won’t be able to squeeze through when you’re hauling a bunch of chemical baggage. Maybe you set your sights too high. Maybe you could be Ammonia next time.

Sokobond is a crate-pushing game about being a chemical. It’s about the best thing that you can do with your brain, trying to deal with the extents of an excellent bit of mechanical design. Nothing within it actually makes much scientific sense, but that all serves as just a nice wrapper. In practice the game takes what we know about the genre and adds the best new twist that keeps getting iterated on until every angle of the idea has been presented.

In each level you’re trying to make sure that every present element which can be formed into a new chemical is linked together, without any excess potential bonds left over. It’s very simple in theory but made more difficult through level structure obviously iterated on to only allow the correct solution and trip the player up constantly until they finally figure out the solution.

Most of the best work in here is in formatting and design, because the levels unlock in a way that makes sure to establish the player is introduced to a concept and then the difficulty is ratcheted up, then at a point mechanics that have been introduced in a vacuum are brought together to add to the complexity.

You start being able to crack chemical bonds, start creating more bonds between the same molecules (for reasons I won’t explain, but you can likely presume it’s in service of solving puzzles) and even start having to deal with puzzles that include elements that can’t be bonded at all.

But my favorite parts are when it doesn’t introduce a new mechanic yet, the game instead just changes the way that you have to think about mechanics it has already introduced. It’s not just an example of great puzzle design, that’s an example of how games should be. Games should constantly layer surprises on the player based on assumptions they’ve made about the extents their abilities can reach.

It’s a great video game, is what I’m trying to say. Now get out of here and be an essential plant nutrient, you nitrogen dickhead.

Oh, Also

I’ve been thinking about this concept for a while, the idea of a game where the character progression works backward. Your avatar becomes weaker as you personally better at playing the game. I feel like when you’re given too many abilities in an RPG then you initially find what works best for you and keep using it rather than personally thinking too hard about maintaining variety.

I can’t think of a way you’d implement it without that being frustrating though. This game, The Clocktower is pretty close, although it’s vague with exactly how you’re being degraded. All you seem to lose is the ability to continually fire shots without tapping the button over and over.

There’s room here for something more. I’d like to see that. Maybe we could do a gamejam with this idea in mind? Let us know if you’d want to do that!