At some point, we’ve all felt a desire to let the past burn. The protagonist of Corey Martin’s elegiac Sokoban-style puzzler is driven by it, as he carries boxes of his possessions to set aflame. Naturally, it’s an arduous task: to finish the job he needs to climb the mountain alluded to by the title, and all that lifting must be murder on the arms. And so it’s only right that you can take a break: pressing A sees him lower himself to the ground, folding his arms deliberately across his knees, as if resigned to the fact that this isn’t going to be easy.
And it isn’t. Bonfire Peaks is a challenging game, a notch above publisher Draknek & Friends’ A Monster’s Expedition (Alan Hazelden gets a co-credit on puzzle design here), if not quite as exacting as, say, Stephen’s Sausage Roll. At first it seems straightforward, as you move crates to create steps up to a blazing pyre in which to deposit your remaining worldly goods. But Martin and Hazelden mine extraordinary variety from this simple idea. Stacks form bridges and towers, as crates are used to shift others. Crates also plug gaps, hook onto ledges, act as dams, stepping stones and ferries, and are employed to weigh down pressure plates. Later, thrillingly, they even become projectiles.