I needed a break after 25+ hours of Hollow Knight Silksong. I have a ton of action games on my plate that I plan to cover on the site over the next couple of weeks. But, for this week, I needed a palate cleanser. Something that wouldn’t stress me out and that I could play in short bursts. That’s where Nurikabe World comes in. This is a less stressful version of Minesweeper.
Creating many mini-islands.
Minesweeper isn’t a stressful game. But the idea of a game about avoiding landing on mines might be. What Nurikabe World does is take the idea of having numbered markers and use it to determine the size of an island. The puzzles here use numbers to signify the size of an island on a grid of varying sizes.
Meaning that if it’s listed as a “1”, you need to have one square with water surrounding its four corners. A “2” means that you’re using two adjoining blocks. If it’s a “5”, then you need five adjoining blocks. What that doesn’t mean is that your blocks are all side-by-side, but they must connect.
For example, a “4” means you could have a 2×2 block. But you can also have a 1×4, or a line of three blocks with a fourth block sticking out in the middle. If your island contains four blocks that touch, then you’re golden.
A few other requirements in an otherwise free-flowing experience
The rules for island building don’t end there. If it were, there wouldn’t be a challenge. The game has two more conditions. For starters, water must flow throughout. So, you can’t have a single patch of water in a corner somewhere. Water must be able to move around the map.
The second is that you can’t have 2×2 water zones. This is the biggest hurdle you’ll face when solving puzzles. It’s easy to create the necessary island sizes, but you’ll notice that 2×2 water zones are easy to make. In the puzzles I’ve done, this was always the last thing I needed to clear.
So, you’ll have to adjust the layout of the surrounding islands until you fix this. Sometimes it’s a simple change. Other times, you’ll realize that you’ve made a mistake on an island somewhere else on the stage. Changing that will allow you to solve the rest of the puzzle.
Some might find it a bit too easy
I was able to go through the first 80 stages in about an hour. For some, that might seem a bit too easy, but I don’t think this game is trying to be too challenging. It doesn’t feel like the developers were trying to throw head-scratching challenges. The first 80 puzzles serve as a steady introduction. These do a fantastic job of easing you into the game’s rules.
Most puzzles have one way to solve. In those intro stages, there are some obvious patterns when you complete them. This one-answer solution might annoy those who are hoping for more creativity. The later stages may allow for that, but I’m still going through the 300 stages.
Other than that, there are daily challenge puzzles. These give you easy, medium, and hard puzzles. This is a decent ramp in difficulty. But most people should be able to complete all three without too much effort. There are a few more modes, including an infinite mode. Here, you’re getting new puzzles until you decide to stop. It’s fine for those who’ve already gone through the initial 300 and are looking for something more.
What I needed right now
I’m glad I picked up Nurikabe World. I like these kinds of puzzle games that offer a challenge but that don’t stress you out. This reminded me a lot of Dorfromantik from a few years ago. There have been a few other ‘peaceful’ puzzle games released this year that I need to check out. But for now, when I need something to calm me down, I’ll be sure to revisit Nurikabe World.
