One More Go

Bonfire Peaks is a puzzle game developed by Corey Martin, and published by Draknek & Friends (A Monster’s Expedition). Corey Martin describes Bonfire Peaks as a game about closure, the premise of which is to carry a box of your belongings and drop them into a fire. You leave nothing behind in each voxelated stage, returning to the dreamlike overworld where Bonfire Peaks‘ moody soundtrack washes over you. Much like classic puzzle game Stephen’s Sausage Roll, Bonfire Peaks is a game where most of the puzzle sits within its movement mechanics, forcing you to consider each step carefully as you try to climb the eponymous mountain, dumping crate after crate of belongings into the flames.

Movement is limited to rotating 90 degrees, picking something up, dropping something, or moving forwards or backwards one tile. That might not sound like it would leave a huge amount of scope for puzzle design, but each stage is carefully crafted to make that limited moveset feel as suffocating as possible. For example, in the first stage you’re asked to climb a pyramid, but when holding your box of belongings in front of you, you’re unable to move forward as you’re blocked by the next step. So instead, you have to turn 180 degrees and climb the stairs backwards before facing the fire at the end of your ascent. Another early stage has columns blocking you from turning as you traverse a narrow path. The solution is to drop the box, step over it, then pick it up again where you have more freedom to manoeuvre.

These are just the opening stages, where the only block you’re concerned with is the box of belongings you have to burn. Soon there are extra blocks that can be placed as steps, double width and double height blocks, arrow traps, flowing water, all of which you have to contend with while juggling Bonfire Peaks‘ limited movement set. This extends to the game’s overworld too. Each time a stage is completed you unlock a block that can be moved and placed in the overworld. To reach new stages you’ll need to stack them, meaning that progress is gated by the number of stages you complete, forcing you to learn the game’s many interactions before allowing you to move on. You don’t need to solve every stage to progress, but there are optional stages blocked by larger progress gates, and they often contain the game’s more difficult challenges.

While the meat of Bonfire Peaks lies in working out the right order of movement, the real spark of the game is in how the different blocks interact with one another. Dropping one block on top of another means you can carry them as a stack, placing an ordinary block on top of a flame causes it to burn. Blocks can be pushed, stuck together, or even fired as projectiles. There’s a lot to wrap your head around and in later stages you’ll need to consider many of these interactions all at once. Bonfire Peaks knows that it can be overwhelming, and so has included an option to sit the character down mid level while you mull over potential solutions. When you think you know the answer there’s no harm in trying it out, any false steps can be reversed with the undo button, or the entire course can be reset if it feels like all is lost.

I played Bonfire Peaks on the Switch, and it feels right at home there. Short, discrete stages where you can put the console into sleep mode if you need a break. In contrast to the game’s message about leaving everything behind, Bonfire Peaks can be an oddly haunting game. Having so few options and only one solution to each puzzle means you can take the game away with you and think it over in your own time. I solved some of the game’s more awkward puzzles away from the screen, working through potential solutions while doing other things. Few games stick with you after you turn the console off, but I think Bonfire Peaks stands easily among them, working its way into your brain as it teaches you its rules. The highest praise I can give is that after 200 stages, I’m still left wanting more. Thankfully part one of Bonfire Peaks Lost Memories DLC is already available, offering exactly that.