| | | Aptly-named brain-numbingly difficult puzzle game in which you try to clear each level of creatures by knocking matching pairs together. You can only shove, not pull, so if you knock someone into a corner, you can't get them out and can only hope to find a way to knock their matching creature in to the same corner.
Given this formula the designers came up with a ton of fiendishly tricky levels in which you have to knock things around in exactly the right sequence to be able to clear the board--one wrong move and you strand a creature somewhere, unable to connect with their partner.
There are something like six or seven different worlds each with a cute audio-visual theme (ancient Japan, European barbarian, sci-fi, etc), in which the character you play gets an brief introductory cutscene. Then it's off with this character to clear lovely little areas of their nice little creatures once more. You get an overall password to track your progress through the worlds, and switch between worlds whenever you like.
It's difficult to imagine how this game could be improved. The characters animate in clever little ways and go quite well with the theme of each world, along with the backgrounds and music. There are more levels available than I want to contemplate, seeing as how I've only been able to clear a few of them so far. The designers have come up with a simple action understandable by everyone, shoving something, and spun it out in to one of the most mind-boggling puzzle games I've ever seen. I wish I was better at it. |
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| | | | At first you can just shove individual creatures around, line them up and knock them in to their matching creature, but very quickly you find yourself having to work out complex sequences in which you move some creatures in to specific places to serve as blockades for others: because you can only shove a creature in four directions, you often need to position a barrier (ie another creature) somewhere along their path so that they will stop in a spot where they are lined up for a strategic push to the side. But be careful in moving creatures together: if you have two in a row you can shove them apart by pushing on the far side of one to knock the other away, but if you get three in a row you cannot budge them in the direction the row is facing. Here is where things start to get... Tricky. |
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