it's kind of truly fitting in a cosmic sort of way that 0player (a rule-discovery puzzle challenge masquerading as an interactive puzzle game) is delisted on itch.io and doesn't show up directly if you google it lol
i really enjoyed this game as a puzzle nerd, but it's really insular and friction-high for people who don't have the background. that is to say, it's got great ideas, but only insofar as you can understand them analytically as a puzzle designer; otherwise, it's easy to imagine the initial hurdle of dealing with the game's unique format without a clear justification until about halfway through to be too much to overcome
that's not a bad thing necessarily, but it's very common these days for puzzle games to be made with that sort of disposition, and i sometimes find it a bit stifling. like, it often seems like the community endlessly spirals itself into more and more of a hyperniche, with no intent to escape from it. this game just does that to an extreme degree for me, so i find its delisting pretty remarkable because it's just like, yeah that feels accurate
i easily recommend trying 0player if you're a hardcore puzzler, but i'm a bit hesitant to do so more generally. take from that what you will!
