Indy’s puzzles make me feel way too smart

Is it really a puzzle if you already know the solution just by looking at it? Triple-A titles often have simple brain teasers that range from annoying to downright pedantic. Solving another abstract version of the Tower of Hanoi puzzle doesn’t fill me with pride or make me feel particularly intelligent. This is why the diversity of challenging and fun riddles I’ve encountered in Indiana Jones and The Great Circle feels so refreshing.

The man with the hat might be best known for stunts and fists that hit like a truck, but it’s those moments when Indy unravels a particularly dense bit of mystic knowledge that really give me goosebumps. When you think of Indy solving a puzzle in any of the movies, he’s usually referencing a notebook or poring over his environment to find something he might’ve missed, an experience that The Great Circle replicates regularly throughout your journey.

I’d hate to spoil some of the more toothsome enigmas for you, but an excellent early instance of this involves using the astrological symbols of planets to deduce a four-digit combination to a safe. After mulling over some notes that you’ll find by exploring the immediate vicinity of the safe, and engaging in a little trial and error, you’ll be met with a satisfying click, which caused me to raise my hands in triumph when I first solved it.

You won’t be challenged by every puzzle you encounter; there’s still plenty of low-hanging fruit in the form of discarded combinations for nearby safes. But perhaps most importantly, the game’s developers rarely use puzzles to bar your progress, reserving the most difficult scenarios as optional objectives that you can return to at virtually any time during your quest should you suddenly have that eureka moment. And while you can use Indy’s camera to get a nudge in the right direction with some of the larger mandatory puzzle segments, if you are stumped by a puzzle, it’s usually because you didn’t do the assigned reading.

There are plenty of other pieces that make Indiana Jones and The Great Circle an awesome title. Troy Baker’s immaculate voice work, the detailed environments, or how you can whip a gun out of a dude’s hand and beat him unconscious with it. But it was the generous application of aesthetically pleasing puzzles that made Great Circle one of the best games I’ve played this year.