Ever since the language puzzle in Tunic that got me to fill up 6 pocket sized pages of notes over multiple days while trying to puzzle it out as I tried to and, eventually, succeeded at translating the in-game “paper” manual, I’ve had a craving for games that force you to pull out a notebook and take notes/puzzle things out as part of the actual meta-gameplay mechanics, because the game doesn’t just do that thinking for you.
What other games are like this, even a little bit, that you’ve loved?
And to be clear, I don’t mean things like TTRPGs which are just inherently on paper. Those are cool and all, but aren’t this thing. I want things that force me to engage my thinking beyond what the inputs of a controller and medium of a screen and my short-term memory alone can do for me.
Not quite the same puzzley aspect but check out etrian Odyssey. It’s premise essentially is that you have a dungeon crawler and you have to make the map yourself. There are tools in game for making the map as you go.
I’m playing through the Switch re-releases now and they’re great. The mapping controls leave a lot to be desired versus the DS originals, but it was never gonna be as good as that magic.