You know that joke from The Simpsons, where the kids find out that cows don’t look like cows on film so you have to use horses, and for horses you have to “tape a bunch of cats together“? When I was playing There Is No Game I kept thinking about that joke. “How do you make an original point and click puzzle adventure? Eh, usually we just tape a bunch of other games together.”
I am being facetious. There Is No Game is smart and funny and surprising, but the thing is that it’s very much “a video gamer’s video game”, if you will. I think maybe it is a small bit too much that. (Note: spoilers follow, I suppose, as this is arguably one of those “if you explain it, it’s not as fun” games).