For the Love of Pie

Oh Pie. How I love you so. Sometimes I forget, but just one little bite and all the memories come rushing right back to me.

But you know what's better than Pie?

Pie when preceded by a deliciously delectable time puzzle. Like in the Misadventures of P.B. Winterbottom. I recently downloaded the XBLA title and I have to say it's thoroughly enjoyable. I'm loving the outside the box thinking required for some of the puzzles. The recording mechanic really amplifies the backward nature of the puzzles. Sometimes you'll have to really think out of conventional video game puzzles. For example recording yourself grabbing the last few pies of the puzzle before grabbing the first ones, knowing that your recording is going to loop around and grab them in order after all is set in place. It's a little difficult to explain through text, so of course I'll be talking it more on the show this week. Just know that there's nothing more satisfying than the deliciousness of solving a clever puzzle.

David

*EDIT* - In response to Skrams....I'm about halfway through the game. Difficulty is very hard to judge. Nick and I have had altering opinions on Professor Layton and I'm sure it's the case here too. But in Winterbottom, I feel you really have to leave your mind open to non-conventional means. I've gotten to the a part now where I'm recording more than 5 Winterbottoms at a time and I can see how it's going to get overwhelming. I think more importantly the problem with the game would be not being able to manage your clones effectively. For example if you have to set up 3 clones doing things in order to grab all the pies within a time limit, you'd set them individually one by one. You can delete the clones individually but not in a way where you can just select the particular one to delete. So you end up having to reset things, wiping all your clones and starting over. Most of the time is spent on meticulously trying to get everything set up correctly. The planning could be frustrating provided you don't see the answer but part of the fun of puzzle games is just throwing things around trying different things until something clicks.