Puzzling Puzzles
Among games in general, I am not ashamed to admit that I enjoy the most those that demand a bit of a mental effort. This may or may be not due to the fact that I was always a completely uncoordinated person, which means that my only hope at succeeding at playing games lied in using my brain: yes, I am the kind of player that presses all the buttons at the same time when dealing with fighting games. In any case, this results in a particular enjoyment of Puzzle games, which, by definition, always require a bit of an extra effort in the brain department. There may be really challenging games, and there may be others are little less so, but, undoubtedly, completing a Puzzle requires some kind of intellectual activity – whether putting your abilities for deduction to good use or developing a game strategy.
We have, for example, a game such as Sleepy, which may very well be a more complex flash version of the traditional Chinese Jackstraw game, only with boxes. The objective is clearing the screen by clicking on the boxes, before running out of time. Complexity is related to the name of the game. Boxes are supposedly asleep, and once you wake them up you cannot make them disappear until they have fallen asleep again. In addition, you can only click on the boxes whose color is indicated at the bottom of the screen (one or two colors at a time, out of four possibilities). There are 15 levels of difficulty and believe me, the game is trickier than it seems.
Then there is FWG Evolution. This is a sort of RPG and, as such, I am not quite sure of what it is doing within the Puzzle games section. Perhaps it is the fact that this is a game about beetles, and look, I like beetles as much as the next person (maybe a bit more), but you have to admit that it is pretty weird. So, in our RPG, you have to breed beetles: feed them, keep them happy and clean, buy them toys, buy other beetles, and well, you know. Stuff. Possibilities abound, or so it seems.
Bloody Fun Day is close to a board game, really. There is a loooong tutorial that will help you make the most of it. You can choose among three Reapers and there is a five level mode and an unlimited mode. Your goal is to kill as many creatures (‘cuties’) as possible, earning points and unlocking powers in the process. The board is never cleared because the creatures you kill leave eggs that will hatch, making it possible for you to move across the board (you cannot move unless you kill a creature or break an egg – which is something mostly bad).
And finally there is Ghostscape 2: The Cabin. This is a puzzle / action game a lot like Icescape 3, which has already been reviewed. It requires speed and cleverness, and sometimes a look at the walkthrough. Graphics are amazing and so is the level of complexity.
Click to play Ghostscape 2: The Cabin
Exercise your brain: just take a look.
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