The Answer is 42

Genre: Puzzle / Educational

Players: 1

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Review:

The Answer is 42 is a family-friendly Educational Puzzle game released on PC in 2019 and ported to Nintendo Switch in 2023. This game has you connecting dots (or, judging by the game’s visual theme, stars in the sky) represented by numbers, ensuring your path doesn’t cross over itself (though you can revisit the same number multiple times), with the goal of ensuring that the sum of said numbers equals 42. Why 42? Because one of the game’s creators thought they were clever making a Hitchhiker’s reference, I suppose.

As dry of a premise as this game is, it’s not devoid of potential – you can have a game that makes math fun (Picross, for example), but this game never gets to that point. I kept finding myself waiting for the game to build to… something, anything… but no. You only ever look for the one solution to each puzzle, which isn’t usually all that hard as your options are limited. However, this also means that your options for creatively approaching problems are close to none.

The presentation in this game is pretty simple, showing the numbers in a starry section of space, connected by colored pathways, backed by soothing music. It’s nothing especially interesting, but it works well enough. It’s just a shame the gameplay itself is even sleepier than this calming presentation.

I suppose if you’re looking for a brain-dead Puzzle game, or want to bolster a young child’s math skills, The Answer is 42 should suffice, though I really doubt that anyone will find this game particularly compelling or entertaining. This game just lacks any sort of creativity beyond the math problems that form the core of its gameplay, and when the most interesting thing about your game is math, it’s probably a sign that you’ve done something wrong as a game designer.

tl;dr – The Answer is 42 is a family-friendly Educational Puzzle game where players connect different numbers to add them to equal 42. While this premise isn’t devoid of potential, this game doesn’t really do anything interesting with it, meaning that mostly all you’re doing here is just adding numbers together. As a result, playing this game is about as fun as doing your math homework.

Grade: D

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