Ever since the language puzzle in Tunic that got me to fill up 6 pocket sized pages of notes over multiple days while trying to puzzle it out as I tried to and, eventually, succeeded at translating the in-game “paper” manual, I’ve had a craving for games that force you to pull out a notebook and take notes/puzzle things out as part of the actual meta-gameplay mechanics, because the game doesn’t just do that thinking for you.
What other games are like this, even a little bit, that you’ve loved?
And to be clear, I don’t mean things like TTRPGs which are just inherently on paper. Those are cool and all, but aren’t this thing. I want things that force me to engage my thinking beyond what the inputs of a controller and medium of a screen and my short-term memory alone can do for me.
It happened only one time, when playing Final Fantasy X, I really wanted to know what they were saying before finding all the Al Bhed primers. So I found a few NPC, took notepad and using a few letters found in the beginning, I was guessing what they were saying. It was quite satisfying and helpful, albeit easy.
This, and for the various secret passwords scattered about. “Kilika and Bikanel join as one”.
I did that at one point too. There was a newspaper that I used to get that had a game that did the same thing. But I can’t seem to find it now.