It’s getting towards the end of Spring Thing, but I’d like to get a few more reviews in. The latest game I played was Tours Roust Torus by Andrew Schultz – an anagram game that’s the final installment in the Stale Tales Slate. Going into it, I expected a game where I could win it with an anagram solver, but I got stuck on the final puzzle and couldn’t finish it.

A lot of work must go into these games. Just coming up with the different anagrams has to be tough. While designing a game might be fun in the beginning, after three of these, I’d think it’d be hard to come up with more. And the game starts with a bit of that, a melancholy look back on life.

The design is simple and effective. You circle around a central room, solving anagrams and changing the environment. It took me a bit to get what was going on, I got stuck on the first one, but then it started to roll. I made my way through seven of them quickly, but then the final puzzle took a turn. I can only guess that it has something to do with reordering the rooms. It’s not an anagram puzzle that I could cheat, and after trying to brute force it, I gave up.

Tours is a fun game that has some light puzzles at the beginning that help shape the setting. It was a little strange, but I ran with it, and it seemed like it was going a little dark. Was I rebuilding Frankenstein? I never did get to the center of the lollipop. That last puzzle was beyond me. Still, I’m glad I played it. It was fun to rearrange the furniture.