I finally completed Proverbs

I've written about Proverbs twice already. It is a gigantic grid puzzle game based on an old Dutch painting; the original painting meant to depict many common proverbs of the day, so the puzzle grid is divided into sections for each proverb, and completing each one rewards you with a little bit of information about it. My main conclusion about Proverbs was that the developer did not understand why it was interesting or funny. Their other games are all just similar grid puzzles, but none of them is really conceptually funny in the way Proverbs is. The game is a Sisyphean task, and it periodically spits snide little insults at you in the form of the proverbs themselves, many of which are about futility and foolishness. It has this crazy resonance between gameplay and theme! The developer has recycled the gameplay, but has never achieved that resonance again. I finished Proverbs today after a session last night where I rushed through the last fifteen percent of the puzzle in a focused…