Games

Tunic!

The "final" puzzle took a whole page of paper. It was brilliant

I usually wrote a lot of scribbles for Stardew Valley, at least when trying to go for perfection.

Heaven's Vault feels like it should have its own journal, but it really didn't.

Sid Meier's Pirates! could use a notebook at points or at least scrap paper.

Her Story is a detective game that starts with you sitting at a computer, not even knowing what mystery you're supposed to investigate. You have to search through the computer's database for police interview footage to figure that out. Then you have to figure out the answer to the mystery you think you need to solve. The interview clips have a lot of details for you to track and link together. I had to make a big chunky note for this game and even had to implement a system to keep track of the likelihood of the statements.

If you want more point and click adventures, try the Submachine series, which was originally in Flash but now remastered as a ten-game compilation called Submachine: Legacy. The developer trained as an architect, so you get to admire intricate, hand-drawn architecture porn. It starts off as a typical 00s Flash room escape, until you realize it was all a… hallucination. You realize that you're actually going to explore a vast, utterly lonely underground world as you try to track down the only person who seems to know how to get out. Teleportation and parallel universe travel come up a lot in the series, so keeping notes will be useful. Incredible dark ambient soundtrack, too.

Fairune 2 and Submachine: Legacy were the last two where I needed to take notes.

For Submachine, I was mainly writing down coordinates of locations where I figured I could come back to use an item later, or information from signs that might be useful in a later puzzle.

For Fairune, I had to make multiple maps on graph paper to keep track of all of the things I wasn't sure how to solve or needed to come back to with new items.

I have also been writing down some numbers for System Shock, but I haven't finished that one yet, and I'm not sure if the note taking will need to be any more extensive.

Animal Well.

Steam Workshop 😭

Myst was my answer even before reading your post, so I would say the rest of the series. Also Quern, in the same genre. Maybe The Talos Principle if you like puzzles, though I don't remember reaching for my notepad while playing.

The last game I recall breaking out pen and paper for was Tunic. You can definitely beat the story without, but the later puzzles call for it.

The following games all typically do not hold the player's hand. They are to varying degrees, some give you a map and/or journal, some do not.

• TES III Morrowind
• King's Field 1-4
• Snatcher on SEGA CD
• Dark Souls 1-3, Demons Souls, Bloodborne, and Elden Ring
• Ultima Underworld
• Silent Hill 1-4
• Shadow of the Colossus
• Tunic
• Super Metroid
• Hollow Knight
• Rain World
• System Shock 1,2

World of Xeen

For the hardest dungeon you have to solve a crossword puzzle. In the game you can read a long story that contains all the answers but the puzzle is in a huge labyrinth far away from that story and it would be too tedious to change back and forth between the two.

The manuals of the games (it's actually two games combined into one even larger game) have dedicated blank pages for notes at the end. I also had the way to the boss of the second game written down there.

Back then it was quite common for RPGs to have space for notes in the manuals.

Honestly it was really handy to have a pen and paper around for Elden Ring for me. There was just so much I wanted to keep track of so that I could come back or to make connections. But it’s also a very acquired taste kind of game to go through!

Star Trek: The Next Generation, for Sega Genesis certainly fit this criteria.

I hear Lorelei and The Laser Eyes was specifically designed around the idea of the player using a physical notepad to help solve the puzzles. Recently released and reviewed strongly, you should check it out if not already on your radar.