Guayota contains a great deal of difficulty and tested my patience quite well. I loved how it implemented puzzles in a way that isolated puzzles on a per-dungeon basis. However, I wanted a bigger payoff from completing its more difficult-levels, and I wanted the light version of the levels to have something to ease the difficulty. That said, Guayota was a great test of my logic and reasoning skills in the few hours I spent in-game. I loved the aesthetic, design, and general level construction, so it’s worth playing if you’re interested in an indie gem with unique puzzles for an afternoon playthrough.
Team Delusion’s Guayota surprised me. When I watched one of its trailers for the first time, it looked like a modern version of old-school Legend of Zelda games involving puzzles, dungeon crawling, and a small degree of exploration. It featured a cute red-hooded protagonist and a floating flame spirit, too!
When I was in elementary school (and middle school, I guess), I spent some time drawing up laser puzzles with elaborate ways to solve involving mirrors, doors, and other simple mechanics. It kept me occupied in classes where I wasn’t allowed to read. On my graph paper, I would plot out entire levels that I would eventually solve once I had forgotten how to solve them. I’m sure some of you did something similar to combat boredom in your classes, or at least envisioned simple puzzles as the days went on.
Guayota is the embodiment of these types of simple puzzles. It’s a very simple puzzler that avoids laying it on too thick that buries the lede of good puzzles behind too much lore, convoluted mechanics, and weird level designs that do little else but frustrate players. Well, there’s some frustration, but that’s something that comes with the territory of being a traditional puzzle game. More on this in a minute.
I did some digging into Guayota’s origins during my review period to find that this little indie gem is the product of a final project of a Master’s Degree at Complutense University of Madrid in 2019. I’m familiar with the trials and tribulations of obtaining advanced degrees, so I would like to congratulate them on taking this project one step further than leaving it as a project and turning it into a game to share with players around the world.
Guayota takes place in the past during the era of exploration when multiple nations wanted to plot out the world and uncover its secrets for their own intentions. Here, the player is taken to Saint Brendan’s Island, a mythical place near the Canary Islands that was home to a secret paradise that the Gods had kept secret from us humans. On this island are multiple temples dedicated to the ancient gods, full of traps and puzzles that only reward those with the patience and persistence to stay alive and uncover the truth of this enigmatic place.
Much of the game takes place in these temples, albeit of varying designs. Torches, blow dart traps, light-deflecting crystals, and explosives were commonplace features in this beautiful tropical paradise that looked like something out of Indiana Jones or Tomb Raider. Not enough games utilize indigenous mythos from the Guanches, Aboriginal Australians, and Inuit, so seeing the Guanches’ mythical thematic manifest in this title is a testament of the creativity of Team Delusion. We deserve to see something separate from Eastern-mythos that has become oversaturated in the gaming space. To that end, Guayota’s setting is notable in that it is faithful to an underrepresented space.
Each of Guayota’s levels is simple, most of which can be completed in less than a minute. As my little red-hooded character, I was to uncover the secrets of Saint Brendan’s island by accessing the hand-painted history tablets at the end of each trap-filled room. Upon completing a room, another door opens for me to discover and use my brains to get to the end. Its puzzle mechanics range from tests of logic in the form of walking through walls in a specific order), lighting torches in a specific order, blowing up gems in the form of a timed trial, as well as laser puzzles that had me redirect beams of light throughout huge rooms to enable (and disable!) crystals to open doors.
Much of these gameplay mechanics aren’t new, per se, but they’re presented in such a way that builds off of each other and increase difficulty in each new room. Once I had gotten the hang of a new mechanic, the next room I entered had me test it out in a slightly more difficult fashion. Each temple (which was comprised of around eight “levels” total) utilized a specific set of mechanics and avoided combining mechanics to ensure that each temple had its own identity. Part of the reason why The Legend of Zelda’s dungeons have earned critical acclaim from players and professional players alike is because of how well they explored a unique set of mechanics on a per-dungeon basis. Guayota does something similar.
The other unique aspect of Guayota’s level design is its dichotomous level design. When I say “dichotomous level design,” I refer to some levels having a “light” version and a “dark” version, and this is not communicated in the most evident fashion. Light versions of levels are more difficult in the sense that they contain traps; once my little character’s health reaches zero, I have to restart the level or attempt to complete the dark version of the level. The “dark” version contains a different set of puzzles without the fear of traps or exigence that adds stress to completing a level.
Admittedly, the light version of the puzzles was not my favorite. My character was fragile with no way to regenerate health in these levels, meaning that I had to avoid coming into contact with traps by dashing as much as possible. The dash ability had a terribly long cooldown (something of almost five seconds per dash) that forced me into not moving and waiting behind cover. This made light version of the rooms tests of patience in waiting out things like my dash recharging and/or cannons from attacking me. Dark versions of the levels were far less stressful, only needing me to use my noggin to get through to the end. No traps, no having to worry about the fragility of my character. Nothing.
Guayota’s difficulty sharply rose in the green temple. Here, I had to use crystals to reflect light on green crystals using blue and red gems. If a beam of light hit a purple crystal, I had to reposition my gems or use the environment to prevent beams of light from hitting the purple crystals altogether. In the later levels with significantly complex crystal placements, I kept wishing that there was a hint button or something similar. These levels in particular were the most frustrating during my playthrough.
At the end of each level was a stone tablet that shed light on the lore of Guayota, that’s about it. When I finished a temple, I got an object and access to additional levels, but nothing that felt rewarding for me investing brainpower and being persistent in completing some of the game’s more difficult levels. This isn’t to say that lore isn’t a worthwhile payoff for a troublesome puzzle, but a big reward is something that would have pushed me forward more than a cutscene.
Guayota contains a great deal of difficulty and tested my patience quite well. I loved how it implemented puzzles in a way that isolated puzzles on a per-dungeon basis. However, I wanted a bigger payoff from completing its more difficult-levels, and I wanted the light version of the levels to have something to ease the difficulty. That said, Guayota was a great test of my logic and reasoning skills in the few hours I spent in-game. I loved the aesthetic, design, and general level construction, so it’s worth playing if you’re interested in an indie gem with unique puzzles for an afternoon playthrough.
