Despite my interest in all sorts of genres throughout the gaming medium, I’d be lying if I said I was skilled at every one of them. While there are many genres I can pick up and play with relative ease, there are just as many that have caused me to struggle, no matter how many different variations of them I play. One of the biggest examples of this is the puzzle genre. Sure, there are quite a few puzzle games that I know how to play like the back of my hand, but there are several that just cause me to look up a walkthrough out of sheer frustration. This was an immediate concern for me when I picked up TR-49 for the first time.
TR-49 is described as a “narrative deduction” puzzle game. You are thrust into a first-person perspective with one simple goal: decode a World War II-era machine before you are discovered by a mysterious enemy faction. My biggest fear jumping into the game was that I would spend more time racking my brain trying to figure out the solution to a puzzle, rather than enjoying the atmosphere, mechanics, and narrative. Thankfully, despite how challenging TR-49 is, that difficulty never stopped me from appreciating the intricate layers of this unique experience.
Code Talker
In TR-49, you take control of Abbi, a young woman trapped in the basement of a Church with one goal, and one goal only: to decipher a mysterious machine from World War II. The machine is complex and requires codes to be input in order to find files from numerous authors from throughout the era. These alpha-numerical codes don’t just link to other notes, but they can also be used to edit and uncover addenda from the machine’s creators: Cecil Caulderly, Beatrice Dooler, and Aliz Caulderly.
Along the way, your handler, Liam, informs you of your deeper task beyond simply finding all of the files: to find a lost book, Endpeace, and destroy it. As you progress, you learn that this book is self-aware, can rebuild itself after being deleted, and is somehow responsible for the current state of the world. It’s up to you to find Endpeace, understand its nature, and figure out how to destroy it and save the world at the same time.
Taking the role of Abbi is a complicated journey. For most of the game, you can tap the intercom button to talk to Liam and get his input on the narrative. She essentially functions as a blank slate for the player, constantly asking questions of Liam so he can elaborate on her current situation. To be honest, I wasn’t really a fan of these sections.
The game is said to take inspiration from audio dramas, but the conversations between Liam and Abbi feel lifeless and predictable. Essentially, she will ask him a question, then he will answer it, and then you can press the button again to ask a follow-up question. It feels less like a dynamic conversation and more like a way for the game to dump exposition onto you in a way that is more forced than natural.
These issues are more obvious because of just how rich the subtle storytelling is. Each entry in the machine is written by an author that you will become intimately familiar with as you find more of their entries. They all have a unique writing style, views on the world, and addenda from the machine’s former custodians. You can deeply study the writing of each article, or just power through and focus on the key information that is necessary to progress. Both will carry you forward and lead to a rich experience either way.
Personally, I opted to focus on the more important writing of each entry, rather than do a deep analysis. While my experience wasn’t ruined due to this choice, I do regret it, and it makes me want to go back and replay the game at some point to focus more on the lore rather than progression. In general, I really enjoyed how TR-49 communicated its story through subtle details, save for the moments where the dialogue was a bit too heavy-handed.
To be honest, though, the story is usually secondary in most puzzle games. It’s usually a vehicle that motivates you to engage with the gameplay mechanics. So, how are TR-49‘s mechanics? Personally, I found it fun, despite some puzzles being particularly obtuse.
Trial and Error
The core of TR-49‘s gameplay is all about deduction, for better and for worse. When you start, you can find a few articles that are directly linked to your original starting point. From there, a few texts and numbers are highlighted, and you can directly connect the two to get to the next important article. For example, an article might mention the letters “CC” then mention the numbers “49,” and you can press both to immediately link you to CC-49.
As you progress, however, the highlights start to appear less and less. The only text that appears is titles for texts, which you have to match to the proper article. As such, you will need to deduce the next set of letters and numbers to find the next source that contains a key source of information, which will eventually bring you closer and closer to Endpeace. For the first hour or so, this gameplay loop feels great.
The satisfaction of figuring out the right alphanumeric combination, alongside the appropriate title, is amazing. You can’t help but feel like a genius when you connect all the dots in just the right way, and you get to see the distorted text become clear before your very eyes. As the difficulty ramps up, though, sometimes I would find myself having to rely on trial and error to progress.
For example, I eventually hit a wall and couldn’t figure out how to find more files from Cecil Caulderly (CC). So, at a certain point, I just started inputting random numbers in order to figure out the right combination. It’s equally possible that I just missed a really obvious detail, but at the same time, some of the articles have numbers and years that seem important yet actually aren’t relevant at all. When I saw Cecil mentioned alongside the year 1980, I thought to try “CC-80,” which didn’t work. Instead, the number was only relevant for a completely different character and combination.
Your mileage with these gameplay systems will depend on your experiences with these sorts of puzzle games, like The Room, for instance. If these sorts of games are your bread and butter, and you can pick them up and understand them within moments, then you will absolutely love TR-49. If you’re like me, however, who struggles with these sorts of titles, you may find yourself wanting to look up a guide to make things easier.
Yet, despite my frustrations with the puzzles, I still enjoyed myself. I liked fiddling around with the different alpha-numeric combinations, partly because of just how pleasing the sound design of the machine’s keys was. There were plenty of points where I was constantly irritated with figuring out the best way to progress, but there were just as many sections where I hit a flow state and pieced together the answer to a puzzle using raw deduction alone. As a whole, though I had problems with TR-49, I still can’t help but want to revisit it at some point in the future.
Complex Yet Thrilling
Puzzle games, as a whole, feel like a genre that is slowly dying out. The few games that are released in the scene don’t get as much attention as they should, and often quickly fade into obscurity. Despite my difficulties with the genre, I always thought of this as a massive shame, especially as someone who grew up with the Portal franchise. Thankfully, TR-49 helped to scratch that itch that I never knew I had.
Don’t get me wrong, this game has a few major shortcomings. The overabundance of exposition-based dialogue often distracts from the subtle storytelling that it shines in. Further, certain puzzles are often way too obtuse and rely more on trial and error rather than actual deductive reasoning. Even still, I managed to have fun in spite of these issues.
The sound design makes the act of fiddling around and experimenting with different combinations of letters and numbers feel so satisfying. The rush of dopamine you get when you piece together a puzzle using actual intelligence rather than dumb luck is absolutely unmatched.
Additionally, the fact that there are multiple endings make it extremely replayable, and the affordable price of $6.99 make it an absolutely essential purchase if you’re a fan of the genre. Now, if you’re someone who is relatively inexperienced with puzzle games, you’re simply not a fan, or you struggle with the inherent difficulty of the genre, maybe TR-49 won’t convince you. Yet, at the end of the day, as someone who fits into that last category, I still enjoyed my time with the game and look forward to playing it again at some point.
Disclaimer: TR-49 was reviewed on PC via Steam (Steam Deck).
