Paquerette Down the Bunburrows

Paquerette Down the Bunburrows (2023) is a puzzle game where a little girl tries to herd rabbits in order to catch them. Play is a simple case of moving around the maze to corner the bunnies. They only move when you do but each has their own intelligence you must learn and outfox. It's a novel idea that really comes alive as you learn how the levels are connected and the dark story that lurks in the background.

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It's essentially a pathfinding challenge. Only here, rather than find your way out of the maze, you need to learn how the bunnies decide on their path and then use that intelligence against them. Get too close and the bunnies flee and dash through tunnels. But approach them in just the right way and you can catch them to clear the level.

As you progress you need to work with each hand-crafted puzzle that's designed to teach you new, surprising and tricky ways of catching bunnies. Eventually, you get to use tools like traps, pickaxes and carrots to help you corral the bunnies. What's more, you discover that the levels are interconnected in unexpected ways.

The result is a simple game about using your presence to affect the behaviour of both the bunnies and the wider system. It looks simple, and in many ways is. But also, there's a surprising amount of flexibility and complexity in this puzzle game.

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Our examiner, Jo Robertson, first checked Paquerette Down the Bunburrows 7 months ago. It was re-examined by Ellen Robertson and updated 7 weeks ago.