Critical Play: Puzzles

One of my favorite puzzle games to play is called Keep Talking and Nobody Explodes. Keep Talking and Nobody Explodes is a two-player puzzle game where one player, the defuser, is in a room with a ticking time bomb that contains various mini-puzzles to complete in order to defuse it. The other player, the specialist, has the manual that contains all of the instructions to complete the mini-puzzles. The catch to the game is that the defuser cannot see the manual and the specialist cannot see the bomb.

Example of a Bomb Kit that needs to be defused (Defuser’s perspective).

The challenge doesn’t come from the procedure to solve the puzzles themselves. It stems from how each player can relay the information they see as effectively as possible. What even adds more stress is that each level is also timed and each puzzle is constructed to be as verbally confusing as possible. Therefore, there needs to be top notch communication between the defuser and the specialist. If instructions aren’t clear, the results could be absolutely disastrous.

Example of one iteration of this word puzzle.

Here is example dialog that probably would’ve happened if I was playing this game with a friend:

• Specialist: “What do you see?”
• Defuser: “Nothing.”
• Specialist: “That’s impossible.”
• Defuser: “No, it says the word Nothing on the title.”
• Specialist: “Oh okay, look in the top left corner.”
• Defuser: “Uh huh.”
• Specialist: “And what do you see?”
• Defuser: “I see Uh huh.”
• Specialist: “Oh okay, well are you saying ‘Uhh huh’ or ‘Uh huh’. It matters here.”
• Defuser: “Uh huh. Short one.”

From this interaction you can see that information can definitely be lost through the conversation. This is just one of the many puzzles that Keep Talking and Nobody Explodes has to offer.