[Enslaved]

Puzzle Mix is a Puzzle game that has 4 different games in one. Its basically clones of all the popular puzzle games. I was never a Puzzle fan so the only one I can say Ive heard of before is the game like Bejeweled. Well on to the review.

Graphics

This games graphics are very colorful and clear. The pieces animate very well and you can pick what color and shape you want them to be. If you pick the wrong colors however, they may not contrast very well and look awkward and you cant remember the default.

Score: 9/10

Sound

Now heres where the game is a bit worse than it should be. All of the little sounds are in the right places, theres a little bubble pop sound when blocks are umm, killed, and there are little clicks when you select something in the menu. But what this game is completely missing is music, it makes the game seam 10x more boring. If this game gets catchy and non repetive music in a future release, I will change the score to a 8.

Score: 5/10

Gameplay

This is where the game shines. There are four different games to shoose from, a game called Switch-it, a game called Same, a game called TriBlocks, and a game called Shift. All of them are addictive and fun and can last for hours at a time. Same is where you have to click on all of the same colors that are touching each other to make them disappear until the panel is cleared. Switch-it is a perfect clone of Bejeweled and has the exact same addictiveness, if you havent played bejeweled, you will learn it fast. Tri blocks at first reminded me of tetris but insted of having different shapes, you have a stack of three colors that can be arranged as they fall, if you line up 3 or more, they disapear. Shift is a game were you have a box around a row of the blocks and you have to switch them left and right to align the colors, you can control the box up and down only. If there is eventually some multiplayer features, it will get its 10.

Score: 9/10

Overall

This game is awesome and can be even better in the future, all it needs is music and a bit of RF TLC. Im not going to put down the overall score because of those too much, because the game is just too fun anyways (and its free!).

Score: 8/10

Pros:
-nice graphics
-great gameplay

Cons:
-No music
-no RF play


Download it here:

http://adic2003.gp32...ames/games.html

Note: This is my first review ever so please be nice!

[Oankali]

Puzzle Mix has 4 different puzzle games that are not all clones of existing games.

TriBlocks is based on the well known Columns game. It's very similar to Columns if you play it in Marathon mode, but if you play it in Chained mode, the goal is completely different, even if you still have to line up 3 or more blocks.

Shift is an original game that I designed myself. The goal is very similar to TriBlocks but the way to do it is completely different.

Same is not an action puzzle game, but a pure brain squeezing game :) . Depending on the settings you choose, it will be very similar to other variants of the Same game you can find on other platforms. The thing that makes it different (well I hope ;) ) is that with 3 colors the goal is more to complete panels and score up, than just trying to make the best score in just one panel, as it happens in all the variants I've found on the Internet. That's because they use to have more colors.
Also, the size of the board will change the difficulty of the game. That's up to you, but bear in mind that there's not always a solution if the board is to small for the number of colors.
So it depends on what you want to do, a lot of panels with 3 colors and medium sized board, or just one panel (perhaps 2 if you're very good :) ) with 4 colors and more.
And don't forget to try the training mode as you'll have the opportunity to try to solve a panel as many times as you want and even undo and redo moves.

Finally you have Swap-It, that was originally based on GPJewel. I've just added the time factor that adds a lot for the addictiveness of the game. It was an advice of a friend that seems to have played a lot a pub version of Bejeweled :P .


And now for the music. I just wanted to say that when I sent Puzzle Mix to the ADIC 2003 competition, I knew that the lack of music would be noticed, but I wanted a game 100% mine. I didn't want to use foreign code, for example MOD libraries.
And because MIDI is not implemented in the official SDK (my cousins melodies are in MIDI format), and I didn't want to waste a bunch of MB on the SMC just for the music, I preferred to leave the game without music. In the next release, I promise to add some music, probably in MOD format.
The same remark applies to my other game Animings that I also presented to the ADIC 2003 competition.


If you enjoy playing Puzzle Mix half as much as my girlfriend, and I will be satisfied of my work!! :D

[Enslaved]

Im sorry about any misunderstandings Ive had! When do you think the next release will be?

[Oankali]

I don't know why you should be bothered about something.
I think you have made a very good review :) and I agree with you in almost all respects. It was just that my goal when I started Puzzle Mix was to offer something more than just clones of existing games ;)

About the date of the next release, I can't tell you because I'm actually working on another project. But stay tuned, I will do what I have promised. :)

[Melville]

I have a complaint about the puzzle mix game...

My girlfriend is completely addicted to it (mostly to switch-it), so keeps stealing my GP32. You should think of the misery you're introducing to people's lives before releasing such addictive stuff! Anyone know of a support group I can send her to?

"Hi, my name's helen and I'm a Puzzle-Mix-oholic..."

I'd also like to say thanks for animings... it's a fantastic game. It's a similar idea to a game I've wanted to make for ages, but animings makes a far better game than my idea would have. So I get the great gameplay accompanied by the smug glow that "I almost thought of this".

Thanks very much,
Melville


EDIT: Hmm, I shouldn't have posted fan mail in this bit of the forum. Feel free to delete.

This post has been edited by Melville: 17 March 2004 - 11:06 AM

[Racemaniac]

i found one "problem" in puzzlemix...
i played the shift game, standard settings, and all of a sudden i found the trick, just shift colums as fast as you can, and sometimes when it doesn't work find a low row to complete and go bezerk in shifting again, pretty random (okay, i try to get a piece to a zone with a lot of its color, but 2/3 of my lines (and often multiple lines) are pure coincidence, that way i got to level 12, with a score of over 15000 (the bonus count began to get long....), so i just let myself loose, so it would end, maybe some tweaking to the gameplay is required....