The Looker
Shares rank 25 of 45 puzzle games by recommenders
A free parody puzzle game that fans of the source material praise as funny and satirical. Critics find its puzzles frustrating and not worth the hours they take.
A free parody puzzle game that fans of the source material praise as funny and satirical. Critics find its puzzles frustrating and not worth the hours they take.
20 people gave an opinion
- recommend it
- 9
- criticize it
- 11
- approval share
- 45%
Recommended in 3 of 13 months
- November 2025: not recommended
- December 2025: recommended
- January 2026: not recommended
- February 2026: not recommended
- March 2026: not recommended
- April 2026: recommended
- May 2026: not recommended
- June 2026: not recommended
- July 2026: recommended
- August 2026: not recommended
- September 2026: not recommended
- October 2026: not recommended
- November 2026: not recommended (month in progress)
Why it doesn’t carry the badge
- 9 people recommend itNeeds 10 or more, not met.
- 0.8 recommenders for every criticNeeds 2 to 1 or better, not met.
- Recommended in 3 of 13 monthsNeeds 4 or more, not met.
The same three rules apply to every product, and the badge can’t be bought. How the badge works
What people say about it
The reasons people give, with the number of comments that give each one. Open a reason to read what they said.
Why people recommend it
Each mark is one comment
Great satirical parody of source material
“a parody that is not only great when it stands by itself, but is satirical in a way that shows they are genuinely big fans of the source material”
Comment from 18 Dec 2025 in “Jonathan Blow has spent the past decade designing 1,400 puzzles” “The Looker is quite possibly the greatest parody ever executed in a video game.”
Comment from 18 Dec 2025 in “Jonathan Blow has spent the past decade designing 1,400 puzzles” “I still think The Looker is a great parody.”
Comment from 19 Dec 2025 in “Jonathan Blow has spent the past decade designing 1,400 puzzles” Funny and silly with fun puzzles
“Several laugh-out-loud moments, some fun puzzles of its own - a wonderfully silly send-up, and free, too.”
Comment from 22 Apr 2026 in “10 years: Stephen's Sausage Roll still one of the most influential puzzle games” “The Looker is quite possibly the greatest parody ever executed in a video game.”
Comment from 18 Dec 2025 in “Jonathan Blow has spent the past decade designing 1,400 puzzles”
What people warn about
Each mark is one comment
Frustrating puzzles that eat hours
“I ragequit the Looker when it spawned an apple in the snake game inside my snake.”
Comment from 18 Dec 2025 in “Jonathan Blow has spent the past decade designing 1,400 puzzles” “the game's not so awesome to be worth spending hours stuck”
Comment from 18 Dec 2025 in “Jonathan Blow has spent the past decade designing 1,400 puzzles” Widely called bad by critics
“This time I was not so dazzled and saw it for as atrocious everyone else things it is.”
Comment from 10 Jul 2026 in “AI-generated videos to maximally drive a target brain region” “it really is just as bad as everybody else says it is”
Comment from 24 Jun 2026 in “I am a person who will look at the Steam Machine and cry”
Other puzzle games people recommend
The four most recommended other puzzle games, with the same counts for each, so you can compare like for like. The tick on each bar marks the 2 to 1 line the badge needs.
| Product | Recommend | Criticize | Approval | Months | Owned | Badge |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Outer Wilds | 65 | 7 | 90% | 9 | — | Approved |
| enclose.horse | 64 | 10 | 86% | 4 | — | Approved |
| The Witness | 60 | 19 | 76% | 8 | — | Approved |
| Braid | 36 | 5 | 88% | 5 | — | Approved |
| The LookerThis page | 9 | 11 | 45% | 3 | — | — |
What people said
18 of the 22 comments that mention it, newest first. Each links to the original comment.
“we told Looker (well, Google) we won't be renewing yesterday”
“We just exited looker by having codex migrate the dashboards to html.”
“more or less a fancy charting library with some access controls”
“Simpler and less capable (Looker vs Strategy for example).”
“Google really shit the bed with Looker and LookML huh.”
“Looker and DBT already mostly or completely solve it.”
“This time I was not so dazzled and saw it for as atrocious everyone else things it is.”
“it really is just as bad as everybody else says it is”
“Several laugh-out-loud moments, some fun puzzles of its own - a wonderfully silly send-up, and free, too.”
“The Looker was much better.”
“Years of tableau/looker have atrophied my creativity a bit”
“I still think The Looker is a great parody.”
“the game's not so awesome to be worth spending hours stuck”
“I ragequit the Looker when it spawned an apple in the snake game inside my snake.”
“a parody that is not only great when it stands by itself, but is satirical in a way that shows they are genuinely big fans of the source material”
“The Looker is quite possibly the greatest parody ever executed in a video game.”
“That said, you may still enjoy The Looker...”
“The Looker was just great.”
Counts come from 1,795,640 Hacker News comments, November 2025 to November 2026. How we count. Report a mistake.