It isn’t until you play something like Bonfire Peaks that you realise how tonally bright, cute and colourful so many puzzle games are. Even if they’re challenging enough to really only attract adults, they inevitably feel like they’re orientated towards players of all ages.
Breaking from the mould is dark and moody Bonfire Peaks, which comes across as wholly orientated towards mature audiences – aesthetically and thematically. This is a game, after all, where the primary goal is to burn your possessions, in the process liberating yourself from your past. That’s a premise already far more relevant and intriguing to baggage-loaded adults than younger players.
With Bonfire Peaks, Canadian developer Corey Martin – in collaboration with puzzle-specialist publisher Draknek & Friends – seems to have improved and expanded on the formula he developed with 2018’s Hiding Spot. Many of the same ingredients feature in both games: a cube-based voxel art style; a Sokoban puzzle mechanic where you push and pull objects around enclosed spaces; and heady subject matter entwined with the gameplay.
In Hiding Spot, you constructed safe spaces out of furniture to manage your anxiety. In Bonfire Peaks, you gain closure by offloading crates of belongings into a bonfire.
Mature-minded game design
Bonfire Peaks is mature minded in other ways as well. Time-strapped adults will no doubt appreciate the game’s unusual amount of freedom and flexibility. This is largely accomplished by embedding the game’s almost 200 puzzles in an explorable overworld, which acts as an access hub.
In this overworld, your unnamed character continually ascends a mysterious tiered ruin – which is part overgrown brickwork and pillars, and part artifacts from contemporary urban life. The higher you climb, the more tantalising clues emerge as to why you might want to Marie Kondo your life. But, to progress, you often need stackable crates to reach the next lavishly detailed level. Fortunately, crates are “won” by solving individual burn-your-belongings puzzles. To access a puzzle, you simply sit down at one of the camp fires on each tier.
This sophisticated system generally prevents you from getting stuck, or, let’s be honest, getting stuck for too long. Although hardcore completionists will likely feel different, you don’t need to solve every camp fire puzzle to reach the next tier (as well as the game’s ending). It also mixes up the game’s difficulty.
In Bonfire Peaks, the puzzles don’t get progressively harder the higher you climb. Instead, each tier’s puzzles utilise a different mechanic, with challenge levels varying per tier. For example, there are puzzles that require harnessing river currents to deliver your crated belongings to the bonfire; others that centre on booby-trapped touch plates; others still where you must contend with crumbling stone under your feet. Just as how people have different learning aptitudes, while you may struggle with one set of problems, you’ll likely solve others within minutes.
In short, Bonfire Peaks’ puzzle design is impressive, elegant and satisfying. It minimises frustration because you almost always have multiple options to explore. You also will never find yourself physically cornered as you can undo movements as many times as necessary, both inside the puzzle realms and in the overworld.
Gameplay pleasures are further enhanced when using a controller, which makes the rigid 90-degree turns of your character feel far more comfortable than when playing with keyboard alone.
Annoyances and final thoughts
Touching on gripes briefly, one of the early tracks on the Bonfire Peaks score includes an annoying trumpet or sax blare. Its repetition breaks the immersive mood created by the rest of the tranquil, but suitably ambient soundtrack.
It’s also debatable that the overworld traversal – itself a puzzle – is as well thought-out as the individual challenges. If you’re going to be aggravated by the game, it’s mostly in this overarching environment, where it’s easy to miss narrow paths, and become fixated on reaching what you realise later is only intricate set dressing.
Still, with the overworld adding its own brainteaser elements, Bonfire Peaks racks up over 200 puzzles. Whether you tackle all, or just some, in your mission to reach the pinnacle – and savour the sensation of being untethered by worldly possessions – you’re going to be occupied for a long time in this oddly soothing, fire-lit world.
Bonfire Peaks releases September 30 for PC, Nintendo Switch and PS4/5. To sample the game for yourself on PC, download the demo now on Steam or the Epic Games Store.
| Bonfire Peaks review | |
Don’t ever think that “casual gaming” means “simplistic.” As a masterclass example, Bonfire Peaks is both challenging and sophisticated on multiple levels. Literally. Even if you’re not a fan of voxel art, the puzzle game comes loaded with cerebral pleasures for mature players that will keep you immersed in, and returning to, its distinctive, darkly atmospheric world. |
8.5 |
| Bonfire Peaks was reviewed on PC | |