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Now I Know My ABDECs
Abdec is an abusive little thing. It says mean things behind your back and passes along your vulnerabilities to everyone who bullied you as a child. Together, they’re planning a comeback tour.
Designed by Blaž Gracar, one of the up-and-coming designers I’m most eager to follow right now, it’s also fiendishly clever. We know Gracar from two previous puzzle games, All Is Bomb and LOK, both of which were similarly clever and nearly as abusive. I want to tell you about Abdec because it’s a puzzle game for everyone who wrapped up the base puzzles in digital titles like Baba Is You, The Witness, and The Talos Principle, only to crack their knuckles and begin decoding the secret stuff behind the curtains.
The problem is that I can’t actually tell you anything about Abdec. Even the rules are spoilers.
Lok Out!
A few months back, I found myself unexpectedly delighted by Blaž Gracar’s All Is Bomb, an 18-card microgame that felt ten times its size thanks to some serious puzzling and a bevy of expansions. Since then, I’ve been playing through one of Gracar’s puzzle books, the pocket-sized LOK.
And when I say “playing,” I mean “fumbling.” In a good way.
SPACE-BIFF! 