Red Frame is a Witnessian puzzle game where every red frame you find has a conundrum for you to solve

Every frame a puzzle

There are plenty of philosophical critiques to be had of The Witness (and its creator at large), but there was something still quite appealing about the idea of a world harbouring puzzles in unexpected places. Thankfully, there's a new one of those on the way that can knock The Witness off of its podium called Red Frame, a time manipulation game set in a buried mansion where if you can see something that might look like a red frame, you're certain to find a puzzle.

This very thinky game was shown off thanks to the Thinky Direct (important disclosure: former reviews editor Rachel Watts co-hosted the presentation), and showed off plenty of puzzles that look like they require some mighty thinkering. Upon being met with a red frame, your tasks will vary. They start simple, like simply moving a gate out the way, an action that can only be done through the window of the frame. These then undulate in form; perhaps you need to play with physics to get a marble to roll in just the right way, or on another occasion you need to help a bed of flowers grow along a particular path.

The red frames differ from locale to locale too, occasionally being no more than that, a red pictureframe, other times a touch subtler in that they are barriers of a playbox (though there is only so subtle you can make the colour red). I do hope that these too will require some clever sleuthing to uncover, as there's nothing more satisfying than solving a secret puzzle.

In total there are apparently over 100 puzzles to solve, and you're able to "manipulate time to replay scenarios, identify cause and effect, and reveal new insights." I'm not entirely sure how that works just yet as it isn't clear whether it's been shown off or not, but it's there all the same. Some amount of story appears to be lurking within as well, as the aforementioned mansion is home to some family's "historical legacy." I suppose that's for us to uncover! Just not yet, as there's no release date currently. You can wishlist it on Steam, at least.