RENGAME Announces How to Use, A Puzzle Game With No Manual
The pitch inverts the usual puzzle-game contract: instead of teaching a system and testing it, the game withholds what the device is for and asks the player to log reactions and guess, which is a harder design problem than it sounds.
Reporting from 1 source: Automaton.
RENGAME announced How to Use on October 6, a first-person puzzle adventure co-developed with NANICA. The player is restrained to a chair in a Western-style mansion and must work out a strange box with no manual, using buttons and levers across all six faces. The developer puts the number of possible operations above 15,000. It is scheduled for PC (Steam) in March 2027.
RENGAME is an Osaka studio formed by the merger of Monkeycraft, Zest Crew, and ZOC, with former SNK staff as core members. Including its predecessor companies, it has worked on titles such as Once Upon a Katamari, Klonoa 1 & 2 Encore, and Little Witch Academia: Chamber of Time.
How to Use is an original work co-developed with NANICA, the puzzle brand of Takarush Corporation, which plans and runs the experiential content Real Treasure Hunting. The box can be lifted and rotated, and the developer says each individual action may carry a larger meaning, with some developments it forbids spoiling.
Synthesized by Yomimono from the 1 cited source below, including Japanese-language reporting where cited, then editorially reviewed before publishing.