I finally completed Proverbs
I've written about Proverbs twice already. It is a gigantic grid puzzle game based on an old Dutch painting; the original painting meant to depict many common proverbs of the day, so the puzzle grid is divided into sections for each proverb, and completing each one rewards you with a little bit of information about it.
My main conclusion about Proverbs was that the developer did not understand why it was interesting or funny. Their other games are all just similar grid puzzles, but none of them is really conceptually funny in the way Proverbs is. The game is a Sisyphean task, and it periodically spits snide little insults at you in the form of the proverbs themselves, many of which are about futility and foolishness. It has this crazy resonance between gameplay and theme! The developer has recycled the gameplay, but has never achieved that resonance again.
I finished Proverbs today after a session last night where I rushed through the last fifteen percent of the puzzle in a focused sprint. For some reason, I just found myself in a mindset where the puzzle became extremely easy to me all of a sudden. I think I just got better at identifying the exact spots where I could crack regions that had been giving me trouble.
(I'd also left a lot of the easiest regions until the end - small regions without proverbs in them, mostly on the roof of the house in the upper left corner of the image. They were all very easy to smash out!)
Here is the moment when I prepared to tackle my final proverb, "Tie a flaxen beard to the face of Christ."
Here's the image completed. It's not much of a spoiler - this painting exists in real life and you can just look at a scan of it online if you want to.
It's funny... I thought I would feel more intensely about completing this puzzle!! I've been working on it for about one calendar year. Right now I feel very neutral about the whole experience. I strongly remember the RPS review describing the kind of mental degradation involved in completing the whole thing in a single rush, but I didn't feel anything like that.
Of course, it's probably because I paced it out so slowly. I only really played it while I had a lot of listening to do... so mostly only when I was on long phone calls or listening to podcasts. I also think that blasting through so much of the puzzle so efficiently in one night left me feeling very superior to it. I get the sense that some people feel like they are at the puzzle's mercy. I ended on a bang. This week, I did not sacrifice much of myself at the altar of the puzzle. (I do not recommend sacrificing yourself at the altar of this puzzle - it's not good enough to merit that.)
I still recommend playing this game if you have a strong need to occupy your hands and eyes while your ears are working hard. I think many people could do just as well playing, say, Slay the Spire while on a long phone call. This game is definitely down on the "slop" end of the spectrum when it comes to "idle hands games". There are better ones out there.
BUT!! It is funny! And it is certainly funny that I have completed it!! I will be bragging* about this one for sure!
*Only to other idiots like myself.