A puzzle game where your tools are completely random

Mosa Lina is an innovative take on immersive sims, where your problem-solving tools are picked at random. It's the next entry in a series of indie game recommendations called "Weekender".

=== Get the Game ===

=== Games Shown ===

ElecHead | 2021
Chants of Sennaar | 2023
Venba | 2023
Mosa Lina | 2023
System Shock 2 | 1999
Ultima Underworld: The Stygian Abyss | 1992
Thief: The Dark Project | 1998
Deus Ex | 2000
Deathloop | 2021
Dishonored 2 | 2016
Deus Ex: Human Revolution | 2011
The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom | 2023
Slay the Spire | 2019
The Binding of Isaac: Rebirth | 2014
Cocoon | 2023

=== Credits ===

[starpravesh]

This would have been a perfect submission for the 2022 game jam, Roll of the Dice.

[ShadwNova]

I think this does display the difference between "puzzle" and "problem" games pretty well. I much prefer problem games.

[AAMIR]

There should be more of such series among other YouTubers because there are indie games out there that are 10/10 but no one knows them because creator couldn't pay for the marketing

[simeonsnow]

Loved that you paired the game with an opposite game suggestion to show that you aren't saying one is absolutely better than the other

[Mackinstyle]

Mosa Lina reminds me of Spacechem and other Zachtronics games where there is no "intended" solution. And I think one thing that might hypothetically improve the experience is to borrow the idea of having user metrics. If I know "2, 301 attempts at this level using the 3 items you were given, and 0 succeeded" that might tell me it's impossible. And when only 4 succeeded, I know it's possible but very hard, so I feel so much smarter when I beat it.

[wackychair]

I love Mosa Lina, such a fun game to mess around with. I've done so many funny and creative solutions to rooms to rooms. Every time a create some rube goldberg machine that actually works I feel like a genius, and every time I fail it always feels like I could have done something different. Such a cool game, so glad you're covering it!

[BuyMyBeard]

As someone who has previously tried making a puzzle game with randomness for GMTK 2022, I found that they really don't mix well together. Puzzle games work better when they have an intended solution, and doing a set of actions in the same order results in the same outcome. It's really cool seeing a game like _Mosa Lina_ that manages to solve that design problem!

[Amalga_Heart]

I tried the demo of this before it came out, played it for 6 hours (normally I only give demos like, 20 minutes), bought it immediately on launch, and good grief, this game just never gets old to me. I love games with true emergent gameplay, and this is one of the best. Just the utterly wild things you can come up with. Every single tool without exception has many possible uses, there isnt anything that's like, oh it's only good in one situation. No, they're ALL useful frequently... but it's up to you to figure out how. Certain tools can seem pointless at first (fish for instance) but seriously, they're all useful, and THAT is impressive design to me. But also there's just the sheer convolutedness of the solutions you can do. It's a game that combines the solving of puzzles with precise platforming and careful timing and such. Sometimes you'll have a solution and then things go wrong but wait, if you quickly do THIS and THIS before you fall it JUST MIGHT WORK.

Something that's nice is that if a situation in a level comes out too simple/easy... as will happen sometimes, you occasionally get a room where maybe a single tool is perfectly suited to it... those levels take up almost no time at all. So you get back to the loopy fun stuff very fast. And the next time you see that same level, you may find that this time, it aint so simple. And on the flip side, there's a lot of times when you get a situation that absolutely seems impossible based on your loadout (and there are times where it IS impossible) but then you have that "aha!" moment where you come up with some brilliant scheme. But of course, you might mess up the execution and fall into a pit.

And really some things in it are just consistently fun to do. Once I realized that the tentacle thing could be controlled (aiming up or down causes all of the tentacles on screen to react) suddenly all sorts of bonkers ideas became possible. Like tentacle elevators, or attaching one to a fruit and then "walking" the fruit along the ground to punch a deadly turret off a cliff (which is the funniest one so far).

Runs are short, too. I can jump into this one whenever I have like, a quick 20 minutes or something.

Just amazing. My favorite game of the year so far, easily. And knowing that the developer has even more content coming just makes it even better. Heck, they already added like 20 more levels just out of nowhere and made changes to make the turrets work better while being in more levels (they work as an excellent obstacle).

[richardstevenson]

I love this series so far. Chants of Sennarr was an amazing experience btw.

[Toujours_Thomas]

I really enjoy these smaller recommendation videos, thanks Mark !

[pvtpaink]

Noita is like this but you're a wizard & the wands you have give different spells in different combinations that you can change at a hub room.

[EmperorsNewWardrobe]

This beautifully shows the difference in Mark’s conceptions of puzzles as a matter of discovering the solution vs problems as a matter of inventing a solution

[tomasgimenezrioja]

I love these weekender recommendations. They are fantastic for people like me who are tried from having to spend 30+ hours to best a game, leading me to only play a handful of games per year

[chenkunnie]

Feel like I can benefit more from this series if they are being released on friday instead of monday, so I can actually use the weekend to play the games that's recommended

[Chivibro]

Glad that Stuffed Wombat gets a spotlight. They make awesome stuff, I've been a fan of them for a while now!

[Rolostunning]

I love the amount of variety in approach to problem-solving and puzzles that can only be done in games, and this video came at the perfect time as I've been playing through Void Stranger lately (made by System Erasure, who also made the excellent shoot'em'up ZeroRanger)

I love creative problem solving more than traditional puzzles, but there's also something really special about a game that presents "only" traditional puzzles but has layers and layers of out-of-the-box thinking and discoverable revelations, ludonarrative harmony letting you also weave together an understanding of the lore and story as you proceed, and persevering through a difficult journey worth it because you came to those understandings almost entirely on your own.

I know it's a lot to ask, especially since I feel Void Stranger and ZeroRanger's strongest moments are best experienced going in without knowing what to expect at all, but I hope by some chance more people get to play and/or watch videos on them. They have so much to discuss in game design, secrets, and story.


But more on topic, Mosa Lina seems like a game made for people like me who just want to taste-test powers and experiment more in every genre of game possible. Thanks for giving it a spotlight!!

[jameshuffaker]

This helped me to understand what I've been wondering for years. Why I really don't like playing some critically-acclaimed "open world" games like Spiderman and why I love other open world games like Tears of the Kingdom. I don't like just doing the thing that the game designers want me to do in the order they want me to do it. I want the freedom to really experiment, even if ultimately I hit the same touch points as other players.. And the amount of hand-holding in very strict story, one solution puzzle games has always gotten on my nerves. But this video made me realize that there are people who love solving carefully crafted puzzles as they were meant to be solved. And that's fine. That's just not really who I am.

[-jr]

Stuffed Wombat is one the most creative game designers that I ever saw on the internet

[rolypoly]

Don't normally comment (hardly ever) but I just wanted to drop by and say this is some of my fav content on youtube (this series) and reminds me a little of what extra credits used to do for the "interesting games you haven't tried" and I highly encourage you to continue doing this series!

[Aldoistaken]

Ahhhh, so glad you mentioned Cocoon, I just finished it and it's so amazing, one of the most beautiful games I've ever played, wish it was harder and longer but still a beautiful experience<3