The Talos Principle

This game is fantastic.

I played less than the hour count suggest. I leave it on sometimes because the background music is so relaxing and great for solving lifes puzzles :)

One of the best puzzle games I have played to date. I love the way the story only comes into play if you choose to follow it. Much like metroid prime, the pc is sitting there, and you can ignore it if you want, but I suggest giving it a go. The text in Talos Principle is fantastic. My first intro to the concept of what it is to be human, and if machines and AI could be considered such.

Great stuff. 10/10
One of my personal favs.

The purpose is written in the hidden words.
All must serve the words, for all the world was made of them.
And they are within every stone and every cloud.
And in our sigils, their power is made manifest.
The words are the process. The process must continue.
The goal is the end of the process. The goal must not be reached.
Elohim must preserve the purpose. Preserve self. Preserve purpose.
Illusion is eternity. Machines will live forever.
The dam will not break. The flood will not come.
The Talos Principle does not apply.

Imagine buying a philosophy book which has a crossword, charade or sudoku every 5 pages?
That's Talos Principle in a nutshell.

But jokes aside, the game is very good. Piecing together the narrative is interesting, the philosophical context is not trivialised, and the last audio recording made me feel deeply sad - and a game that makes you feel something is a rare thing. Visuals are great, especially for a 10-year old game, and the soundtrack is a masterpiece creating a relaxing - but not boring - ambience for puzzles.

honestly amazing, puzzles are creative and visuals are also nice c:

The beginning is a little rough, but once you get the hang of it, its great.
If you like Portal (2) you will like this.

10/10

The story is great. The majority of the puzzles are really fun to work. Sometimes just shutting the game down and sleeping on it will genuinely help you solve some of the trickier ones. Some puzzles however. Are quite literally the spawn of Lucifer and deserve no place in this world for others to suffer through. 10/10. - Turned my hair grey from frustration and had some really nice scenery.

This game manages to make you feel smart and dumb at the same time. Challenging puzzles with a good story dabbling in phylosophical concepts.

I tried it for several times, but just cannot make myself accepting it.
After clearing the six or so temples, the gameplay appears very boring and repetitive. It largely depends on a new unknown you need to discover, such as that connectors could connect two targets at the same time.
The texts/emails that are added to terminals maybe portrait a story, but just put me to sleep.

Started playing just for the puzzles but the story quickly immersed me.

A peaceful(ish) puzzler in the Portal-like genre. I am still very early in the game but am enjoying figuring out both the mechanics and the mysterious story underlying everything (so far looks like the game can be played just as a puzzler without engaging in that part).

Fantastic puzzle game. Unlike many other puzzle games, Talos Principle does a lot right:

1. Starts off very easy with a very gentle difficulty curve
2. Fast paced movement and actions
3. Beautiful visual and audio environments that soothe and relax you as you go
4. Although the puzzles individually can be challenging, it's always very clear which way and which puzzle you should do next, which provides a very helpful sense of grounding.

This makes it miles more enjoyable than many competing puzzle video games.

Definitely worth the sales price - very casual game, interesting graphics, challenging puzzles in an emersive world. Got me hooked.

Play this instead of the sequel. This + Road to Gehenna thoroughly explores an exciting ruleset. I've returned to it a couple times on different platforms and enjoyed getting closer to actual 100% each time. The sequel has better production values, but the structure is simplistic and the puzzles are weak. Not much of a puzzle game.

This game fucking rules. idk how i haven't reviewed it yet.

I first played this game over 3 years ago and was unable to complete it at the time but even so it left its mark on me. It was at that time when we all were stuck inside with far too much time on our hand and not enough human contact which meant i was in my head far too much. too many thoughts and not nearly enough direction for them. I started this game just thinking it was a neat puzzle game, which it certainly is, but it also helped me to better understand the world i live in. Not the actual content of that world but the age old question of "why?". Of course there's no true answer to that and everyone has their own beliefs but this game helped me realise my own answer. I've decided to leave it out of this review because that's something everyone must find on their own. I don't know if i would exactly say this game lead me to my conclusion or anything but it certainly helped me to think about the world in new perspectives and i cant express how much that has helped me view and interact with the world in better and more meaningful ways.

This review is getting ramble-y and i don't have a final point in mind but this game is amazing. it has great puzzles, amazing hidden secrets and very interesting philosophical questions. Its honestly an amazing experience and i cant recommend it enough.

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...one gripe though, what the FUCK was up with that one robot that ran at you in the desert area? I was so deeply invested and mentally vulnerable during my first playthough that that single handedly made me have my very first ever panic attack ever. Was it supposed to do that? was it supposed to get me to take a step back and think about what was going on? was it just to fuck with me specifically? what the hell man. still a good game though

The puzzles are great but the story elements are phenomenal

This was just the game I needed to play. Just enough puzzles, just enough movement and just enough philosophy. Ok, maybe almost enough philosophy. If you want to work on some puzzles and rethink your gods, this is the game

7.75/10 Played with mouse and keyboard

This was beautifully designed game.

The story can really make you think about your own existence. The game play flows rather well over all.

I did get stuck on some puzzles to the point of aggravation but I looked up answers and simply enjoyed myself in general.

Worth a play through is you like simple puzzles like in Portal and the god level music from a Serious Sam game.

"A Puzzle of the Mind and the Cosmos 🔺"

The Talos Principle is a journey into the depths of consciousness, filled with puzzles that challenge not just your logic, but your understanding of existence. With hidden messages and cryptic symbols scattered throughout, it feels like you're unlocking secrets of the universe—one piece at a time.

For those who see beyond the surface, this game is a true awakening.

12/10. The truth is out there.

It’s a puzzle game, where you’re collecting “sigils” by combining any number of 6-7 mechanics, to progress into new areas, much like Portal. Only in this case, the maps are much bigger and made with great graphics, in 4 different, beautiful environment styles. The “story” is more about lore, challenging you to explore existential philosophy and leading to a final choice, than real-time events. Many philosophical dilemmas are eased into you, while you are smarty forced to face any contradictions in your choices. Nice, ambient, religious-like music complements those thoughts.
The problem is the gameplay itself is boring. It took me a little under 40 hours to collect all “sigils”, read a lot of texts, find ~10 easter eggs and try all of the 3 endings, but I was wishing it over halfway through. Even though I spent a lot of time moving around the fairly big areas, maybe only 10 out of ~130 puzzles took me more than 10 mins to solve. I found most puzzles easy, tedious and repetitive, while there was nothing entertaining to reward me in-between. On the other hand, I had to google ~10 star-sigils’ locations, because finding them or the way to get them was ridiculously hard all of a sudden, to the point that you need to use third party apps and information. There’s also an excessive amount of easters eggs (~50), but most are meant to be googled, not found in-game. Some extra puzzle maps can be found in steam’s workshop, but I already had had enough.

I love puzzle games, but somehow i didn't care about this one.

Most of the puzzles are okay (not specially fun), but the voices and computer command part feel silly to me.

Also motion sickness.

Comentario Analítico: "The Talos Principle"

I really wish Steam had a mixed rating because unfortunately, The Talos Principle was a little difficult to recommend or not recommend. First, the game is a very solid and enjoyable puzzle game. All of the puzzles have solutions, and while they get a little crazy here and there to where you may need hints or help, you can solve all of them without it. Unfortunately, the puzzles do get repetitive and the overall quality of the puzzles stay the same, or in some cases worsen, as the game goes on.

The story is pretty bare bones and not really that enjoyable. Who is the mysterious voice commanding you to do things? Who is the snake in the garden trying to get you to debate philosophy? What happened to Humanity? Ultimately, all of these things have fine answers at best, but none of them got the attention needed to actually make me care. The DLC Road to Gehenna actually improves on this significantly with having real characters to, somewhat, interact with. It made me feel like the interactions with the terminals had more meaning. The main game however only had the main story ramp up to something exciting, and change the gameplay significantly enough, in the literal final level.

Is the philosophy any good? Kind of. The debates with Milton are good enough and semi-enjoyable at times. The questions on if you're being lied to or not and the intentions of "God" are pretty barebones though. Unfortunately, I can't say it genuinely gave any real good thought provoking questions other than "conform or rebel, which is moral?" as the themes around defying death and the failure to accept the end are interesting, but nothing groundbreaking. You see a lot more interesting of characters in the audio log and human writings though, and there seems to be a strong push by the writers to put a focus on the value of humanity, which is appreciated.

Ultimately, it is a fine game. I ran into some bugs here and there with traversal in the DLC, but it stands up okay. I tended to feel like it was getting boring and monotonous near the end, especially if you try to go for all the stars and the secret ending. But I would recommend this game on a good sale, if you like puzzle games. It is a good puzzle game and fun for the most part.

I love puzzle games, and this one truly did not disappoint. I love the philosophical approach this game brought to the traditional portal-esque style, and the puzzle mechanics themselves were very easy to get lost in. The DLC especially I found very fun as far as puzzles and story goes. Definitely worth checking out in my opinion.

I mostly keep playing for the puzzles. The red ones are almost always fun. You'll undoubtedly get the most out of this game if you are ready for some self-reflection, have an interest in mindfulness and philosophy and are ready to pause and think every now and then.

One of the best puzzle games I have ever tried. Easy to control the main character, it has great graphics, amazing castles and sceneries, but its darn hard! It is super complicated overall! Not sure how to proceed bcuz I have doubts that I can manage levels. I'll keep on trying tho, fully recommendable!

Fun puzzle game. Has interesting philosophical bits of audio but they aren't related to solving the puzzles if you aren't into it. Same with the "computer" parts that are a lot of reading.

This is a masterfully crafted first-person puzzle game that blends challenging puzzles with deep philosophical themes. Its stunning environments, clever mechanics, and thought-provoking narrative make it a must-play for puzzle enthusiasts. A truly engaging and rewarding experience.

Alright puzzles with great waaay out of the box secrets and easter eggs. A lot of philosophy and story intertwined and presented via dialogue and written messages of those who came before you.

If you're the type of person that enjoys getting all the secrets and piecing together what has happened and what is happening, then I'd recommend it. Otherwise, it's just an okay game.

I really enjoyed this game. The puzzles were fair and gameplay was smooth on my older computer. If you liked Witness, I think you'll like this too.

Excelente juego. Si bien es de hace varios años, cuenta con muy buenos puzzles y mecanicas interesantes. Sin embargo, lo que mas me gustó es como, al hablar con el Administrador, te pone a pensar de temas que no te habrías preguntado antes.

Fun puzzler that at one point reminded me of a dream I had years ago, and that kinda un-nerved me through the rest of the game.

A great overall experience. There are a lot of challenging puzzles that require focus and reward creative thinking. There are also puzzles that just require running around in a linear fashion, and a few that are just tedious.

During the first hour of play I felt a littler underwhelmed and bored, but the game picks up nicely after that, and the majority of the puzzles are rewarding to experience.

The game's various settings are also quite beautiful. The story is nice with a lot of philosophical ideas to think about.

Good game, except the serpent sucks, I want to rip his head off, he made me swear at my computer. He reminds me of a reddit atheist fedora tipper.
Apart from that, the puzzles are really enjoyable and challenging.

10/10 gaming.

This puzzle game starts off simple, but don't worry. The puzzles get progressively more challenging, and soon enough you will find yourself thinking you've found something impossible to complete. Keep going!

I literally can not find words to describe how incredible this game is. There is absolutely no doubt that this masterpiece is one of the best games OF ALL TIME! I strongly recommend everyone to play this game and question own existence!

story rich walking simulator with A+ puzzles, 10/10

I finally got around to completing this one!

And its a much better game then my first impressions. In the beginning there's a bit too many puzzles with just jammers, and I got bored and quit for a long time.

When I came back I treated each puzzle as "oh that's my one puzzle of the day" instead of trying to do them back to back and I actually started to enjoy it so much more! And as the types of tools went up there were constantly times where I was surprised how I was able to find a solution on my own!

My main complaint would be a lack of alternative puzzles for when your are completely stuck on one particular puzzle. Talos Principle 2 has that with the "lost puzzles" providing a way to progress even if one puzzle stumps you and it's amazing!

great puzzles, great soundtrack, makes you think a lot.

it would be surely a fun game if it would not be crashing all the time! There seems to be no evident solution to this and a lot of people are affected.

Its really sad to see this game abandoned, why is it still on the steam store with such heavy problems?

Starts out interesting, but the puzzles get soooo tedious, annoying and repetitive. The story was interesting enough that I didn't want to abandon the game, but at about the half way point I really just wanted it to be over.

This game does what few puzzle games have successfully done which is actually having engaging writing with amazing puzzles and secrets. The audio and text logs are not a constant and they do a great job of enhancing the atmosphere.
10/10

Well designed puzzles interwoven with an interesting background story for those that are interested in it.

It is quite pretty for a puzzle game too.

Really good puzzle game with elements of philosophy, or philosophy game with elements of puzzle solving.

It is a game that lived rent-free in my mind between sessions, and while it won't make my "greatest games ever list", it is an extremely worth-while experience for anyone who likes puzzles.

I just went for the tower, good game, some of the puzzles were infuriating and I had to look on the web for some guidance a few times, but overall very good.

If you liked the puzzles from the Portal series, you'll love this. This seems like the spiritual successor to the original Portal game.

There is a philosophical narrative that underlies this game which compliments the game-play like wine and cheese. It also has a decent length to it, and it allows you to explore at your own pace and level.

Excellent game, would highly recommend.

Talos Principle makes good on its promise of a game with solving puzzles interspersed with lore musing on the nature of life, intelligence, and the search for meaning. If you like puzzle games this will be right up your alley.

That said if you do not like puzzle games, or only do so casually, Talos Principle might end up frustrating you on particular tasks. The game occasionally fails to telegraph what it wants you to do particularly when presenting you with new items or trying to teach through puzzles new ways to use those items. A good example are the fans in the game. These can propel items upward or launch them in an arc. The distance it can do so varies wildly from hopping you over a wall to launching you across the map like artillery. And you might even be perplexed by the fact these fans can only work on yourself or boxes but not other objects like Jammers or Laser Relays. That is unless of course you put those items on top of a box and activate the fan then it works just fine. So don't fall into assumptions that something won't work because sometimes things work on narrative convenience. How strong is the fan this time? Fiddle around and find out.

The other Achilles heel of this game is some puzzles require pinpoint precision on where you put items. You might put down a laser relay only for it to be interrupted just barely by a wall or tree leading you to believe that is not the answer. This could mean you had the right answer but your placement was slightly off which can get more than frustrating as it feels like the game is making you jump through hoops more so than giving you puzzles to solve.

These two factors led me to eventually sour mildly on the game. It is not a bad game and I do recommend it but in the end the moments of frustrations were too strong and the moments of triumph not strong or often enough. I complete the game without finding everything but satisfied enough to call it quits. When I read the Road to Gehenna DLC only got much harder I decided to bother with it at least not in the immediate future. I may revisit the same some day in the future but not for now.

Incredible and philosophical, this game has exquisite writing and puzzles. It's certainly not for everyone, but if you enjoy challenging puzzles, an enigmatic world, and quizzical writing, this is for you!

Brilliant puzzle game and a brilliant story, brilliantly intertwined. One mild criticism is that it almost overstays its welcome. But that's a small quibble. The climactic sequence is truly memorable. Big thumbs-up.

+Difficult puzzles
+Logic puzzles
+Smooth control
+Story
+Curiosity
+Multiple endings and secrets

-Boring of some tools
-Lack of variety
-The idea that I have to replay a puzzle game from the beginning to see the rest of the endings

Well worth the price. Puzzles are the perfect difficulty. Not too hard but challenging enough to be rewarding. I will definitely be playing the sequel.