Islands of Insight

Story fans should probably steer clear, but if you enjoy a good challenge, pick out your favorite musical playlist and settle in to explore Island of Insight’s gorgeous puzzle-lover’s paradise. Just be sure to pack accordingly, as you could be there a long, long time.

The sheer amount of puzzles on offer here is incredible, without ever being overwhelming. There’s a solid sense of progression, with goals to work towards – but you’re also free to explore however you wish, tackling the puzzles that interest you and, for the most part, ignoring the ones you don’t enjoy as much. It’s already great but with a few updates over time, Islands of Insight could really be something special.

Islands of Insights soars when you’re sprinting and gliding through its sense world, solving different kinds of puzzles every few minutes. But since there’s no truly co-operative puzzles, the game’s online requirement is poised to perplex players.

Islands of Insight is the modern reinvention the puzzle genre needs.

I definitely had fun solving a bunch of puzzles, especially ones that involved finding the right visual path through a group of rings, or playing a sort of reverse Minesweeper with black and white squares. Others like hidden objects or hunting for nodes inside a boundary were annoying, but I never felt forced to try them. There’s a lot to like about that idea of zero pressure puzzle-solving. But everything else, like leaping, floating, and gliding around the open world, filling in the skill tree, or deciphering the map and other UI elements, bogged me down. Islands of Insight is a shot at blending together ambitious scale with cozy gaming, and has to try harder than it should to not collapse under its own weight.