Puzzles are fun for people who don’t have enough meaningless frustration in their daily lives. The Return is a minecraft puzzle adventure map that seeks to provide a level of challenging that might otherwise be missing. It’s more than a game. It’s a substitute for being locked in a perspex room with a blowtorch and a rabid monkey, like we did in the old days.
The map begins by heralding the player as the chosen one. We’re all chosen ones here – and it feels gosh darned good. I was confused by the very first puzzle, which is not uncommon for me. I was also confused by the second, and the third. Basically, all the puzzles were difficult to solve. Which is good news for people who like things that are hard to do.
I also discovered that the map is large and directed by a storyline which makes a rainbow village on a snow drift plain look conservative. The problem seems to be the fact that your dad is losing a battle against snow golems. Personally I reckon anyone who loses a battle to snowmen probably deserves to lose, but that’s an unsympathetic position to have.
I mean, snow golems aren’t even hostile. So you pretty much have to be hitting yourself in the face to lose to them.
But the map isn’t all fighting against snowmen. It’s also travelling down a hall of disembodied heads of crafters come before you. And there’s the moment when you see… well, it’s fairly nasty so I won’t surprise you with it because the sort of people who are really going to enjoy these puzzles are going to definitely enjoy a nasty surprise.
It’s not all finding levers either, there are some pretty fun timed challenges, which I enjoyed because they weren’t all that hard to understand. I also enjoyed the frequuent notes left to me by my own subconcious. My subconcious, as it turns out, is not all that inspired. Also, iron golem battles!
Wordpuncher’s Rating: 7/10. There were a lot of puzzles. The puzzles were varied. This map is perfect for the sort of people who think that cryptic crosswords are too easy and whose parkour skills are so good they don’t have any cartilage left in their ankles.