BELOW:
You watch as the train attempts to make the journey.
I’ve played a lot of puzzle games, and usually the thing that most excites me is the New Idea: how it stands apart from the crowd of Sokoban clones and Portal-likes happily populating the internet. But that feels like the wrong tack with Raide, a game of intimate, tactile puzzling and unravelling secrets.
If there is a big idea – some mechanic that sets it apart from the other train-based puzzle games (and there are quite a few) – I haven’t found it. The rules of the game are simple: you’re laying track segments between distant points, to connect houses together. In each level, you’re given a pile of track bits, and you must use every piece in the puzzle, even if a simpler solution presents itself. These rules are soon embellished with track-splitters and broken track (these, too, must be placed somewhere), and I had a challenging, engrossing time playing through the main story this evening.