Harmonic And Cryptic - A Poems & Codes Review

Compiling a Poems & Codes review is ambitious, having only recently received a review code. Could you seriously read through over 400 excerpts and summarise the experience, let alone decipher them in ample time? 

I don’t believe you.

What is possible is giving a fair account of what one can expect from this puzzle game from Hero Game Co. We’ve been here before as this is the same team behind Prose & Codes – a rather excellent deciphering game available on Steam where you decode extracts from definitive texts.

The source material comes from Project Gutenberg – a digital archive of ‘cultural works’ run by volunteers. Founded in 1971, it’s a digital library of well over 70,000 eBooks – all of which can be downloaded or read online. In this iteration, the developers have encapsulated the works of notable poets that go beyond ‘There once was a man from Nantucket…’.

Poems & Code Review: Decipher This

Hands up: I’ve never been fond of poetry. I love the English language, but poetry has never resonated with me, and despite writing for many, many years now, I have always struggled with the medium. My repertoire is limited to rhyming couplets and Wu-Tang verses. But Poems & Codes isn’t about creating your own poems but deciphering them.

You’re presented with a cryptic puzzle comparable to Hangman, only more advanced. You’ll recreate the text in all its glory by using the available letters below the verse and clicking them or manually typing on your keyboard to complete the missing characters. As a bonus, there are outbound links to the Project Gutenberg website, so you can read the poem in its entirety and add a poet to your list of favourites within the game menu.

There are many themes in Poems & Codes, from Love to War, Music to Beuty. This sometimes helps with our strategies, as we all have our little go-to Wordle methods, or going for the easy words such as ‘and’, ‘the’ and, well – ‘as’. Because of the themes, you can spot repeated words that assist in your code-breaking.

As before, hints are available that theoretically solve the puzzle outright if you keep clicking it, and there’s no penalty for doing so. But why would you do that? It’s like having someone make dinner and another person eating it on your behalf. The point being? Hints are there to prompt you when stuck, not as a way to fire through the game.

Use Thy Words

A note on the difficulty. There’s an abundance of old-fashioned words used or variations of modern language no longer in circulation. If you’re unfamiliar with older texts – such as beyond your mobile phone, you might struggle as there are no pengs, danks, or slays – well, not in the context you might think. Still, it’s educational, and as mentioned above, you’ll notice the patterns.

The reason for publishing this Poems & Codes review early is for one and a half reasons. The main reason is I don’t anticipate finishing this anytime soon. That’s a good thing. I could happily do a handful of puzzles at a time, do some work, walk the dog, and return to another – perhaps none at all. Then, the next day, a handful more. These puzzles are relaxing, challenging, and inspiring. It makes no sense to me to blitz through this. As indicated earlier, there’s a lot to get through, so taking the time to appreciate them is recommended.

And, on a minor note, the game has been released on Steam (I received the code on launch), so you might be bombarded with other reviews saying this, that and the other, but I’m hoping my words are some help. 

Poems & Codes is another entertaining game from Hero Game Co., but it’s a slow-burner. On this basis, I recommend you check it out – even if you aren’t a fan of poetry, as it’s won me over. Also, 10% of every sale goes towards Project Gutenberg. Sounds like a win-win situation if you ask me.