$19.99Is Last Call BBS worth it?
Last Call BBS is worth it if…
- you like puzzle games that let you build a thing, then rebuild it better
- you miss the sound of a modem and the feel of a 90s desktop
- you want short sessions you can switch between when one puzzle stalls
- you enjoy solitaire variants with a real twist
- you like Zachtronics games such as Opus Magnum or EXAPUNKS
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Eight games behind one dial tone
The Barkeep has loaded a retro computer with a full set of cracked puzzle games, and you download them one at a time from the Last Call BBS, complete with a simulated dial-up connection and a short cooldown before the next file. It's a slow, deliberate ritual that fits the mood: you poke around the board, pick a title, and wait while the modem does its thing.
The eight games range from factory automation and circuit design to two kinds of solitaire, a robot model builder, a tile-matcher and a logic dungeon crawler. Getting stuck on one is no problem: you just switch to another. Each download also unlocks story files about the Barkeep, the developers and the Sawayama Corporation, so the collection slowly tells its own story as you play.
Factories, circuits and other engineering puzzles
The heart of the collection is the engineering puzzles. In 20th Century Food Court you design factories that produce food "just like they did over 700 years ago in the 20th century", placing machines and wiring them up while keeping costs low and output fast. ChipWizard Professional has you building integrated circuits from wires, transistors and capacitors on a tiny grid, and it's cramped enough that you'll wonder whether it's a game or a CAD program.
Both reward tinkering: a working solution feels good, a tidy one feels better. X'BPGH: The Forbidden Path goes stranger, a cursed world where you grow flesh sculptures from cells by setting your own rules, with no instructions at all. Figuring out what it even wants from you is the puzzle.
Head-to-head at the arcade cabinet
HACK*MATCH, the tile-matching game from EXAPUNKS, comes remastered with a single player campaign and local head-to-head multiplayer. Two players, one keyboard, matching tiles in a race to clear groups and push the level forward: it's the loudest the collection ever gets, and a good change of pace from the quiet engineering puzzles.
For a social evening it works well: pass the controller between rounds, argue about whose fault the last loss was, then calm everyone down with a game of solitaire. The whole package is built for short sessions you hand back and forth.
