I agree, except for some of the bonus puzzles (particularly in 1) requires some out-of-the-box thinking, sometimes literally by breaking out of the puzzle you're in taking puzzle pieces with you. All the basic puzzles I agree are straightforward, but some of the bonus tings require you to look for extra details that may not be part of the puzzle exactly. I think this is done particularly well in 1, as the story is about thinking for yourself so you have to start thinking about the puzzles in a different way. In 2 most of the bonus things are done exactly the same each level and you just need to figure out how to connect them to other things in the map. Usually they don't require "breaking" the puzzles to complete, even though this is still possible and allows for other options to solve some puzzles.

[–] NuXCOM_90Percent@lemmy.zip 2 points 7 months ago* (last edited 7 months ago)

Even those are generally "obvious" as level design makes it obvious there are interactables not inside a puzzle or that use tools that aren't part of that specific puzzle. The narrative is what pushes you to think "... what if I take this out of the puzzle room?" but many puzzles outright teach you those skills with the kill fields.

As opposed to "You should have looked to the left while walking between these areas and realized that if you lined up the level geometry it would make an arrow"