Kairo, by Locked Door Puzzle (2012) is a distillation of the puzzle game, taking the common tropes that are typical of these kinds of games and abstracting and reducing them to their most basic forms.
By stripping the detail from the world, the use of primitive shapes creates room for more focused on the puzzles themselves.
For example, the player begins the game upon an open platform, looking into blank space. A building in the distance ahead, disguised behind fog, emphasises the distance and encourages the player to navigate towards it in order to explore it further. From this opening scene alone, it can be seen that there is attempt to reproduce or objects, but merely to convey just enough information that objects can be understood and interpreted.
The simplicity of form and repetition, as shown in these pillars, make it easier to observe the asymmetry created by the staircase to the right.
The flat colour palette and use of primitive shapes again provide better clarity and ways for the game to understand scenes and patterns without the need to entirely represent objects.
A green hue, combined with the abstracted shapes of trees and benches, portray this space as a kind of park.
Additionally, the game uses hieroglyphic-like symbols as the method of codifying some of the puzzles. Without the need for written instructions or additional detail on objects, the game can guide the player through the simple annotation of objects with these hieroglyphs.
The use of hieroglyphs are used to convey a correlation between the two objects.
Though the visuals are heavily abstracted in the game, audio is used in a more literal and straightforward manner in which to best represent objects as they appear to the player. Stone objects grind as they are moved as the result of a switch. The sound of running water accompanies a river-like flow and movement of rushing shapes in a simulation of a waterfall. Without these aural cues, the abstraction of an object’s shape alone creates a far less contextual and cohesive experience for the player.
In a further distillation of these puzzles, the game relies on this utilisation of sound design for many parts of the game. One such puzzle (see below) involves a series of rotating rings which must be triggered in a particular order.
This puzzle includes a circular monument in the centre, accompanied by a series of switches.
For each switch that the player stands on, the game will chime two kinds of notes. A correct move will present an upward-inflecting chime, indicating a positive, whereas an incorrect one will create a flat note. In conjunction with the varying symbols that adorn each switch, the player is given enough information, however simple, to understand and decode the puzzle’s system.
In combination with the aforementioned hieroglyphs, the use of sound aids in the decoding of this puzzle.
Hence the minimalist representation of Kairo‘s objects, and their reduction to their simplest forms creates a honed experience that is capable of evoking a similar sense of wonder and discovery to the player as more literal representations. Removing any visual noise in each room and scene also serves to prevent obstruction to the intended message for the player. The meaning comes from these instances of performing the actions themselves, rather than they would represent should they carry additional aesthetic details. Thus this game’s message is reflected in this abstraction of the gameplay, in favour of eschewing representation. The world can only say so much, whereas the player’s actions speak volumes.