A Cipher Zero Puzzler Review
Or, The Tactile Satisfaction of Clicking on Squares
Mild Spoilers for Cipher Zero ahead.
I really like square clicking games. It might be related to my love of the Stargate universe, a series I devoured as a kid. Or, it might be related to my love of pen and paper puzzles and the tactile feeling of penciling in marks.
Cipher Zero satisfies both of those loves at once somehow.
Thinky Games describes Cipher Zero as a Grid-shading game. It's very similar to something like Picross where you have set rules about how many squares you're trying to shade in and you're successful when you satisfy all of the conditions.
Cipher Zero also shares lineage with nebulous games like The Witness because it never explicitly explains the rules to you. Instead you learn by checking your work when you think you have a correct answer. Levels start easier, introducing concepts, and then get more complex over time so you never feel overwhelmed.
There are lots of games that fit into this puzzling niche. Rule learners like this genre like WorkWorkWork1 or Gridspech. Box filling games like 14 Minesweeper Variants or Liquidum. I love all of these games for the vibes and the challenge, but the challenge scale always escalates to a point where the brain burning turns a delightful and easy romp into the sort of feeling of a doing a mental hyrox by the end.
I like Cipher Zero because it feels far gentler. More like a Zone 2 run up a gentle slope than interval sprint on a hot day. The background aesthetics help with this. There are pleasant animations, lovely music, and the processing of checking a result is both helpful and pleasing. One way Cipher Zero attempts to this is by minimizing overall knowledge of just how many puzzles there are to complete, less it turn into some sort of rush to end the game. Areas (if you can call them that) are made up of multiple levels which are made up of 8 or so puzzles. Once you click into a puzzle, there's a bar at the top which will show you just how far along a level you might be. If you happen to complete every puzzle in that level, the game will zoom you back out show you a window animation like you're on a train ride across a countryside.
But the amount of “this is how far you are information is kept to a real minimum. The combinatorial craziness of 14 Minesweepers feels overwhelming. Cipher Zero feels more like a paper sudoku book you might pull out on a morning commute on a subway. And then put away. And pull out again.
Once upon a time I might have asked why this game isn't available on a phone. Outside of a few gems…
most phone games are, quite frankly mush right now. If this game had come out on phone it would've had a daily version, been the type of thing you might whip out while you were on the toilet or idly watching TV and I suspect it mostly wouldn't have made any impression.
Instead, this feels like the type of gentle puzzle game I can recommend to people who love LinkedIn style games, but that also offers a complete experience. I highly, highly recommend Cipher Zero. It’s an excellent experience.
WorkWorkWork is a genuinely incredible achievement to capture the sort of factorio style puzzle experience with a pen and paper puzzle.