Take Something Literally is a series of two Flash games by Benoît Freslon, a French game developer. Both parts, Take Something Literally (2009) and Take Something Literally 2 (2010), are puzzle games where you have to, as the author describes it, "think outside the box".
Each one has 25 puzzles, and both games give hints, while the second game gives the player rewards for completing every row of 5 puzzles, in the form of funny videos (including two videos by Rémi Gaillard and The Keyboard Cat
visible in the loading screen).
The gameplay requires the user to "think outside the box", using different techniques like (in one case literally) moving the mouse outside the game boundary, clicking on elements available in the context menu, and even incorporating elements of Paradiegetic Gameplay, such as refreshing the website to progress the puzzle.
Due to the games running on Adobe Flash, they stopped working on December 31, 2020, and can now only be played through their desktop versions, available on their itch.io websites.
Links:
- pages on Benoit Freslon's personal website: 1st game, 2nd game
- itch.io: 1st game, 2nd game
- Kongregate pages (games can't load): 1st game, 2nd game;
- YouTube walkthroughs: 1st game, 2nd game part 1, part 2
Take Something Literally provides examples of:
- Hidden Object Game: In the second episode, the Hint System requires lightbulbs which are hidden in different places in the game.
- Hint System: Both games has one. The first episode uses an "on delay" method, while the second uses a "for payment" method, where the user collects lightbulbs.
- Paradiegetic Gameplay:
- About a third of the puzzles in both of the games rely on them. For example, in the first game, the player has to open the game twice, opening the puzzle called Ping on one of them, and Pong on the other, then put them side to side so that the ball goes from Ping screen to Pong screen, and then back, at which point both levels complete in both instances of the game.
- Also, in the second game, the player has to open of the first game in a separate window, at the level which shows a glowing candle, and put it underneath the window with the second game, so that it reveals a message written in invisible ink.
- You Were Trying Too Hard: One of the puzzles in the second game, aptly titled "Impossible", where you seemingly have to put together an image broken into a lot of pieces actually requires you to just quit the puzzle.