You can get it on Itch.io for $3 (Windows and macOS). What makes it work is that it’s not just a map that shows you where to go, but it also makes you want to explore. The simplicity of its aesthetic adds to the mystery of this place, making it engrossing and immersive even though you’re essentially just looking at a map. The simplicity of Pear Quest’s appearance and gameplay, along with the density of its world, makes the game feel somehow shorter than it actually is. If you get stuck, you can just look around and spot something you haven’t noticed. Since you can always see everything, you don’t have to go there with the rabbit to check it out again. Being able to see the entire game world solves some of the backtracking problems that adventure games can have.
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With a little bit of lateral thinking, you’ll realize the snake probably has it, but then you need to figure out how to get the snake to give it up. Going to the bird, they’ll give it up in exchange for finding their missing egg. By just looking at the game world or by talking to the other animals, you’ll learn a bird probably took it. You can get it fixed, but the carpenter lost their hammer. An early example is when you need to cross a broken bridge. Most of the puzzles in the game are sort of item chains in which you have to collect something for one character, who, in turn, wants something from someone else, and so on, in order to progress and get the thing. Once you start encountering puzzles, that exploration helps you piece things together. This produces a natural curiosity, inviting you to explore this space even before you’re presented with puzzles. It raises plenty of questions, like why is there a big snail near a racetrack? Why is that penguin shivering? What’s the deal with that Totoro-looking thing in the forest?
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You can immediately see the end goal and the last step in how you get there along with an entire world full of tantalizing unknowns. This is a clear visual example of the brilliance of how the game is set up. The gate has a heart-shaped lock with a key that is split into two pieces that you can also see on the map. You’ll quickly learn that you need to get to the giant pear, which you can clearly see is locked behind a gate. Aside from moving around, you can also pick things up, jump, and talk to the other people / animals who typically either tell you what they need or what you need to solve a puzzle. You control a humanoid rabbit who falls from the sky onto the island. Pear Quest mashes together the puzzles of classic adventure games like Monkey Island and Myst with the movement of a two-dimensional Legend of Zelda. This makes the whole place feel more alive and responsive to what you do, and it creates some interesting solutions to the often frustrating nature of adventure game puzzles. No matter where you are on the island, you can see every other part of it. It is both the whole island where the game takes place and your only view of the game itself. The screenshot above contains the entirety of the game Pear Quest. In our biweekly column Short Play, we suggest video games that can be started and finished in a weekend. It can be difficult to find time to finish a video game, especially if you only have a few hours a week to play.