ReThink
- March 7, 2017
- Yaeko
- 6h median play time
Get on Steam"ReThink is a single-player quiz game set in a futuristic correctional facility. Experience awesome gameplay as you solve puzzles of varying difficulty to prove your logical thinking skills and earn your freedom. Immerse yourself in the wonderful visuals and good music as you navigate through the game's first-person perspective."
PC
Windows
Reviews
- The puzzles are challenging and thought-provoking, providing a satisfying experience for players who enjoy logical problem-solving.
- The game features beautiful graphics and a relaxing soundtrack, enhancing the overall atmosphere while playing.
- It offers a good level of difficulty that keeps players engaged without becoming overly frustrating, making it suitable for both casual and dedicated puzzle enthusiasts.
- Many puzzles can feel tedious and repetitive, as the game lacks the introduction of new mechanics in the later stages, leading to a grind-like experience.
- There are technical issues, including performance problems and bugs that can disrupt gameplay, such as cubes not reflecting lasers correctly.
- The story is minimal and poorly executed, leaving players wanting more narrative depth and context for the puzzles.
- gameplay78 mentions
- 28 % positive mentions
- 68 % neutral mentions
- 4 % negative mentions
The gameplay primarily revolves around directing colored lasers to specific goals using limited redirectors, with a focus on puzzle-solving mechanics that can become repetitive as new elements are introduced less frequently. While some players appreciate the clean graphics and intuitive mechanics, others find the lack of variety and depth in gameplay mechanics to be a drawback, leading to a sense of monotony over time. Overall, the game offers a solid puzzle experience, but it may not reach the heights of more acclaimed titles in the genre.
“The main puzzle mechanic involves placing blocks in the correct positions to redirect colored laser beams, to activate switches of the same color, which then deactivates forcefields blocking your path to the next puzzle chamber.”
“It does a great job of introducing new gameplay elements and changing old ones to create a good difficulty curve and provide variety as well as a nice sense of progression.”
“I love puzzle/strategy games that actually make you think, and this one has great puzzle concepts and mechanics.”
“All the game mechanics are introduced early on, so for the latter part of the game, it's just puzzle after puzzle with no change of pace.”
“The two gameplays never blend in and none of the mechanics designed there are deep.”
“The controls of one gameplay mechanic where you need to place cube chains are very fiddly.”
- story62 mentions
- 5 % positive mentions
- 76 % neutral mentions
- 19 % negative mentions
The story in "rethink" is largely criticized for being minimal and poorly executed, with many reviewers noting it feels tacked on and lacks depth, resembling a basic echo of games like "Portal." Players describe the narrative as anticlimactic and simplistic, often reduced to a few lines of text that do little to enhance the overall experience. While the game focuses on challenging puzzles, the absence of a compelling story leaves a gap in player satisfaction.
“The story ends up feeling rather tacked on and is a basic echo of Portal: you're stuck in an institution and hopefully you'll get out of it in the end, but in the meantime, there are puzzles.”
“More or less the same tale being retold: the facilities were once used to test prisoners (a tale which faintly parallels Portal's story), and then later (Rethink 2 and onward) used as 'escape room' museums.”
“My only wish was that I could have found out more about the world it was set in; the story is sparse even by puzzle game standards.”
“There is an attempt at a story with you being a prisoner that has to do puzzles to be allowed to leave, but it's ruined by the fact that it's simply just a few lines of text. I wasn't expecting much, but at the end it pops on screen something along the lines of 'you didn't think you'd get to leave that easily did you?' before just ending. I didn't even realize until after that I had walked back into my cell when this happened; it's very anticlimactic, it could have done without it to be honest.”
“The story ends up feeling rather tacked on and is a basic echo of Portal: you're stuck in an institution and hopefully you'll get out of it in the end, but in the meantime there are puzzles.”
“Calling it a story would be an insult, as it's literally two sentences long, but oh well.”
- graphics58 mentions
- 34 % positive mentions
- 59 % neutral mentions
- 7 % negative mentions
The graphics of the game are generally praised for their clean and aesthetically pleasing design, with many noting the high visual quality and artistic layout. However, some reviewers criticize the game's optimization, stating that it demands more system resources than necessary for its visual style, and express disappointment in the reduction of aesthetic interest compared to previous versions. Overall, while the graphics are considered beautiful and functional, there are concerns about performance and a lack of variety in environments.
“Graphics are nicer than they need to be for a puzzle game, and everything is functional and easy to parse and understand.”
“The graphics are stunning and puzzles are fun.”
“Both the actual in-game graphics as well as the UI are clean and readable, supporting the gameplay nicely.”
“Very pretty, but seems unnecessarily demanding on the system for the aesthetic of the game.”
“Technical downside worth mentioning: the game isn't very well optimized, and running with high-detail settings takes a more powerful GPU than the artwork suggests.”
“Doesn't hold a candle to something like Portal, because there's no story, no secrets to uncover, and very basic graphics.”
- music40 mentions
- 45 % positive mentions
- 40 % neutral mentions
- 15 % negative mentions
The music in the game is generally described as relaxing and ambient, complementing the visuals and enhancing the overall chill experience. However, some players noted that the soundtrack can become repetitive over time, with a limited selection of tracks that may not appeal to everyone. Despite these criticisms, many appreciate the soothing quality of the music, which pairs well with the game's puzzle mechanics.
“The soundtrack is good in a zen kind of way and the puzzles all follow the same basic idea but still have a variety of difficulties to keep you engaged.”
“If you want a chill puzzle game with nice relaxing music, you've found it.”
“Overall, the experience was still relaxing, thanks to a slow-paced game, a minimalist but enjoyable art direction and good music fit to the mood of the game.”
“No nonsense puzzles that I can work on while listening to podcasts (the game has pretty awful music).”
“Music gets repetitive after a while.”
“I liked the puzzles and it had a nice aesthetic; however, the background music/sounds were not that great.”
- optimization12 mentions
- 33 % positive mentions
- 42 % neutral mentions
- 25 % negative mentions
The game's optimization is a mixed bag, with some users experiencing excellent performance on high-end systems, achieving 4K at 120 FPS, while others report significant stuttering and poor performance even on powerful setups. Many reviews highlight that the game is not well optimized for high-detail settings, requiring more robust hardware than expected. However, there is a consensus that the developers have made strides in improving optimization in their later titles.
“Performance was great (I'm on quite a high-end system, but the game ran at 4K / 120 fps throughout, which is better than a lot of games).”
“It does seem like the dev has been evolving steadily though, with the later games being more refined and better optimized.”
“It looked so optimized and so quick, that I took a chance on it actually having controller ability.”
“According to other reviews, there can be performance issues.”
“Poor performance, stuttering on an 8-core/RTX computer.”
“It does seem like the dev has been evolving steadily, though, with the later games being more refined and better optimized.”
- grinding6 mentions
- 0 % positive mentions
- 0 % neutral mentions
- 100 % negative mentions
Players find the grinding aspect of the game to be somewhat tedious, particularly with puzzles that become repetitive over time. While jumping puzzles are generally manageable for those familiar with FPS controls, the overall experience can feel like a grind due to the need to navigate through various configurations.
“The puzzles start to get tedious after a while.”
“It's more like grinding through with different configurations.”
“The puzzles start to get tedious after a while.”
- stability6 mentions
- 0 % positive mentions
- 0 % neutral mentions
- 100 % negative mentions
Overall, the game's stability is generally solid, with no major crashes or glitches reported. However, some later puzzles exhibit timing issues and unstable solutions that can lead to minor inconveniences, such as exit doors malfunctioning temporarily. Despite these quirks, they do not significantly impact gameplay or result in level restarts.
“Later puzzles seem to have solutions with timing glitches (pulsing emitters may produce 2 valid steady state solutions, but randomly fail during the transition between them causing the exit door to slam in your face and then immediately reopen), solutions that depend on unstable cycles (a pair of splitters pointed at each other emitting a beam that was sent to them at one point, but has since gone away), and solutions that require substantially fewer blocks than provided.”
“So even when these glitches happen, it's just a minor inconvenience, never a cause of death or restarting the level.”
“So far, I haven't come across any issues, crashes, or glitches.”
- replayability2 mentions
- 0 % positive mentions
- 0 % neutral mentions
- 100 % negative mentions
The game is criticized for its monotonous gameplay, resulting in low replayability value, making it less appealing for players seeking varied experiences.
“It's quite monotonous and has low replayability value.”
- humor2 mentions
- 100 % positive mentions
- 0 % neutral mentions
- 0 % negative mentions
The game is consistently described as a short and humorous puzzle experience, highlighting its comedic elements as a key feature.
“It's a short, funny puzzle game.”
“It's a short, funny puzzle game.”
