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052 – Old Puzzle videogames — 3/4

Here, a succinct review of different types of puzzle videogames published until the year 2000. Not in chronological order.

Single character control

● (Series) – 1985–2000 Several puzzle games developed first for MSX computer systems and later for Windows : - Eggerland Mystery - Eggerland 2 - Eggerland: Revival of the Labyrinth - Eggerland: Departure to Creation - - Adventures of Lolo 2 - Adventures of Lolo 3 - Adventures of Lolo () - Eggerland for Windows 95. The hero of most games is Lolo, a blue, spherical character with eyes, arms and legs. The story mainly deals with King Egger, the villain, capturing princess Lala, who is similar to Lolo, only colored pink or red, and wearing a bow. Lolo must rescue Lala by travelling through Egger's domain and solving the puzzle rooms laid out before him. His only weapon is a Magic Shot, but he can gain some powers in the way. The player must guide Lolo through a room of 11×11 tiles and have Lolo collect all of the Heart Framers ther. Doing so opens up a Jewel Box, which contains an item. Successfully acquiring the contents of the Jewel Box will clear the room of all monsters and open the way (full of obstacles) to the next room. ● Adventures of Lolo – 1989 A puzzle compilation (related to Eggerland) released for the Entertainment System, 's and 's and Online's Entertainment System. The player assumes the role of Lolo and attempts to rescue

Old Puzzle videogames — 3/4 ● Page 1 of 14 Princess Lala, who has been kidnapped by the evil King Egger. Lolo travels to Egger's castle, with 50 rooms arranged in 10 floors of five. Within each room, Lolo must collect several hearts in order to open a treasure chest and collect the gem inside, which will open the exit to the next room or floor. The player must navigate the obstacles in each room and avoid or neutralize several different types of enemies, which vary by movement and attack pattern. All enemies disappear once Lolo picks up the gem. He can gain other powers (and lives) on specific screens. The player can restart a screen at any time, at the cost of one life. ● Banana – 1986 A fixed screen . There are 105 stages in Banana. The player controls a mole which digs through dirt collecting various fruits and vegetables. In most stages, the produce must be collected in a specific order, or the player may be forced to restart the stage. Bananas are special fruits which give the player one of four items — a bomb, a ladder segment, a rope, a rock — objects he can use if he takes a misstep in a stage and gets stuck. ● Boxxle – 1989 A multiplatform puzzle video game. The gameplay is the same as in other games in the Sokoban series, with the plot being that the player must maneuver boxes in a warehouse in order to make enough money to woo his desired girlfriend. It had a sequel called Boxxle 2. ● Bombuzal – 1988 A puzzle video game released the Amiga, Atari ST, Commodore 64, MS-DOS the Super NES. To complete each of its 130 levels, the avatar has to destroy all bombs on the and navigate between two enemies. He must stand on top of the bomb to light it and then take one step away before the bomb explodes. In most cases, the bombs have to be set off using a chain reaction to prevent the avatar from being killed in the explosion. Each Bomb/Mine has a reaction zone : a small

Old Puzzle videogames — 3/4 ● Page 2 of 14 bomb will only destroy the tile it's on, while a large bomb will destroy 13 tiles. ● Boulder Dash – 1984 A 2D puzzle video game released for Atari 8-bit computers. The player controls Rockford, who must dig through caves collecting gems and diamonds and reach the exit within a time limit, while avoiding various types of dangerous creatures as well as falling rocks and the constant danger of being crushed or trapped by an avalanche, or killed by an underground explosion. ● Buster Bros. Series (Pang or Pomping World) – 1989 A cooperative two-player arcade video game. The Buster brothers must finish a round-the-world quest to destroy bouncing balloons that are terrorizing several of Earth's landmarks and cities. There are 50 stages (with differing numbers and sizes of balloons) at 17 locations. Each player starts with a single harpoon. When a balloon is popped, special weapons may drop down. Players also start with 3-5 lives, but extra lives are given when certain point totals have been accumulated. ● Deadly Rooms of Death (or DROD) – 1996 A computer puzzle game. Beethro Budkin, dungeon exterminator, is asked to clean King Dugan’s castle from harmful beings and nasty things. And he will do it with only a "Really Big Sword". The game is entirely tile-based and takes place on a 38×32 rectangular grid. Most monsters and objects take up a single tile, though some monsters (such as serpents) take up multiple connected tiles. Each room is a separate puzzle, and to solve it the player must defeat all the monsters in the room and exit it. Monsters or objects will only move once per turn. Each type of monster has a different algorithm for its movement, depending on its location relative to the player. Some rooms simply require finding a sequence of moves that allows Beethro to defeat all monsters without being killed; other rooms require solving more complex puzzles, thanks to game elements such as orbs that open and close doors, trapdoors that fall after being stepped on, and so forth.

Old Puzzle videogames — 3/4 ● Page 3 of 14 ● I.Q.: Intelligent Qube – 1997 A puzzle video game for the PlayStation. At the beginning of each level the player is put on a stage that has 23-30 rows and between 1 and 4 sets of rows comes at the user at one time. When all the blocks in one set are destroyed, more blocks are raised. If the player ever falls off the stage — either by standing on the final row of the stage as it is eliminated, or by being "avalanched" off by rising blocks — the game is over. ● Interphase – 1989 3D first-person and puzzle video game. The action mostly takes place in two modes : a 3D cyberpunk environment and a 2D schematic map where puzzles are encountered. 3D objects represent security doors and cameras. To disable the real-world devices, they must be destroyed. Puzzle- solving involves determining which objects to disable and in what order. The player must also deal with virtual defences, (enemy ships) and defeated them. While viewing the 2D map, the action in the 3D world continues. Enemy ships must be dispensed with before puzzle-solving can proceed — otherwise, the player becomes a sitting duck. ● Kickle Cubicle – 1990 A puzzle game developed for the arcades and ported to Nintendo Entertainment System. The player must travel through the four lands in the Fantasy Kingdom, which Kickle plays in a set order. Each land has a boss at the end. After completing all four lands, the "special game" begins, consisting of 30 harder levels. The player controls Kickle to solve a series of puzzles on frozen islands. The goal of each level is to collect the red Dream Bags when dealing with deadly enemies.

● Krusty's Fun House – 1992 A video game based on the animated sitcom . The player directs small rats to an extermination area through complicated maze-like levels. He controls Krusty the Clown, who must navigate through his Krusty Brand Fun House. Each level is a puzzle in which a number of rats

Old Puzzle videogames — 3/4 ● Page 4 of 14 must be exterminated using different objects and passing by various obstacles. ● Kula World (or KulaQuest) – 1998 A 3D platform puzzle video game developed for the Sony PlayStation. Various elements and obstacles are introduced as one moves on to new levels, which means that the complexity and level of puzzle solving required gradually increases as the game progresses. The game involves making ingenious use of the various types of platforms and surrounding objects. The bonus stages also become more complex as the game progresses. Points are awarded when the player collects keys, treasures and fruits and also when they complete levels. A two-player mode is also available, with two variations of the game. ● Kwirk (or Puzzle Boy)– 1989 A puzzle video game developed for the Game Boy and ported to the PC Engine/TurboGrafx-16. Kwirk has three game modes, each one with its own set of rules. The object is to get from one end of the room to the staircase on the other by rotating turnstiles, moving blocks and filling holes with blocks. In Diagonal view, characters and blocks have shadows and appear in crude 3D, whereas in Bird's Eye view everything is 2D, viewed from the top down. The three skill levels and two viewpoints are featured in all modes. ● Lode Runner – 1984 A 2D, fixed-screen platform game video game. After the original game, a number of remakes, spin-offs and sequels were published in the Lode Runner series for different computers and consoles. The player controls a stick figure who must collect all the gold in a level while avoiding guards. Thereafter, he must reach the top of the screen to pass to the next level. There are 150 levels which progressively challenge players' problem-solving abilities or reaction times. Levels feature a multi-story, brick platform motif, with ladders and suspended hand-to-hand bars that offer multiple ways to travel throughout.

Old Puzzle videogames — 3/4 ● Page 5 of 14 The player starts with five lives; each level completion awards an extra one. Should a guard catch the player, a life is subtracted and the current level restarts. The player's character can fall from arbitrary heights without any injury but cannot jump. He can trap themselve in pits from which the only escape is to abort the level, costing a life, and begin again. Lode Runner was second best-selling Commodore game as of late 1987. ● Popils (also known as Popils The Blockbusting Challenge and Magical Puzzle Popils) – 1991 A side-view stage-based puzzle platform video game for the Game Gear. The player controls one character — a Boy — through different stages (rounds) and must reach the Princess on every stage to complete it. Gameplay focuses on destroying blocks, avoiding enemies and spikes and using various ladders and warp doors to reach the Princess. Each stage is one fixed screen and does not scroll in any direction and is completed when the Boy and Princess meet, or failed when either the Boy or Princess is killed. The puzzle aspect is based on destroying certain blocks. When a block is destroyed, the column of blocks above it fall down one square, change the layout and alters possible paths for the Boy, or the Princess, or enemies which move around. To complete the game "perfectly" all 100 stages must be completed using the same or fewer numbers of steps. ● (or Mogurānya) – 2000 A video game developed for the original Game Boy and later for the Nintendo 3DS Virtual Console. The mole Muddy has to move a black ball to a gate at the end of the screen in order to get to the next screen. He can push, pull and throw it. Along the way, there are many obstructions (moving enemies, pipes, barrels, weights, bosses). He can also dig into soft ground to find subterranean paths around obstacles. Choosing where to dig is a crucial element of the game's various puzzles, as creating holes in the wrong areas could hinder the player's efforts to advance. Dropping the ball into a hole would cause it to

Old Puzzle videogames — 3/4 ● Page 6 of 14 return to its starting point. Any wrong step will force Muddy to leave the screen and return to try again. ● Series – 1993–2005 A graphic adventure puzzle video game for PC. Myst's gameplay consists of a first-person journey through an interactive world. To complete the game, the player must explore the island of Myst. There he discovers and follows clues to be transported via "linking books" to several "Ages", each of which is a self-contained mini- world. Players can interact with specific objects on some screens by clicking or dragging them. The scene then crossfades into another frame and the player can explore the new area. There are no obvious enemies, no physical violence, no time limit to complete the game, and no threat of dying at any point. The game unfolds at its own pace and is solved through a combination of patience, observation and logical thinking. In retrospective, Myst is considered to be a precursor to casual games that gained popularity with browser platforms and mobile devices which typically do not require players to act quickly, as well as a preliminary example of a walking simulator that allow players to explore and discover the game's narrative at their own pace. Myst's success led to several sequels continuing the storyline : - - Myst III: Exile - Myst IV: Revelation - Myst V: End of Ages - Uru: Ages Beyond Myst (multiplayer) - Myst Online: Uru Live - (a parody computer game). The Myst franchise had sold over twelve million copies worldwide, with Myst representing more than six million copies in the figure. Myst was added to the collection of video games of the Museum of Modern Art in 2013. In June 2019, Village Roadshow Pictures announced they had acquired the rights to make Myst films and TV series.

Old Puzzle videogames — 3/4 ● Page 7 of 14 ● Oddworld Series – 1997 A video game franchise and fictional universe for various platforms such as PlayStation, , PlayStation 3, Game Boy, Windows and Wii U. Oddworld is the name of the planet on which all four Inhabitants games are based. It has its own sun and thus its own orbit, resulting in a unique clock and calendar. The planet suffered huge natural turmoil that resulted in volcanic crusts and huge craters used by the various Oddworld species to house their cities. Only one of Oddworld's continents has been featured in the series – Mudos – and only a tiny fraction of Mudos has been seen. The protagonist species of the games in the Oddworld universe are the Mudokons — an oviparous anthropoid with blue or green skin. Their principal enemies are the Glukkons — a cephalopod-like anthropoid with only vestigial lower limbs. The GameSpeak feature allows the player to interact with the non-playable characters to rescue Mudokons and open certain doors. Published games are : - Oddworld: Abe's Oddysee - Oddworld: Abe's Exoddus - Oddworld Adventures - Oddworld Adventures 2 - Oddworld: Munch's Oddysee - Oddworld: Munch's Oddysee - Oddworld: Stranger's Wrath - Oddworld: New 'n' Tasty! - Oddworld: Soulstorm Unreleased titles : - Oddworld: The Hand of Odd - SligStorm - The Brutal Ballad of Fangus Klot - Oddworld: Squeek's Oddysee - Oddworld: Munch's Exoddus - Oddworld: Slave Circus - Oddworld: Stranger's Wrath 2 - Stranger Arena Abe is the strongly developed central character of the Oddworld series. The Oddworld games have received more than 100

Old Puzzle videogames — 3/4 ● Page 8 of 14 industry awards and, until 2014, the franchise as a whole has sold seven million copies. ● Catrap (or Pitman) – 1990 A puzzle-platform video game originally developed for the Sharp MZ-700 computer and released for the Nintendo Game Boy and later for the Nintendo 3DS Virtual Console. The player directs the avatar — an anthropomorphic cat — to navigate a room while clearing obstacles and kicking monsters and ghosts off the screen. Once he has knocked them all, he advances to the next (more difficult) level — and they are 100. Trial and error make up a large portion of the game. Players can also create their own mazes. ● Pushover – 1992 A platform puzzle game developed for the Amiga, Atari ST, MS-DOS and Super NES. The game consists of 100 levels of increasing complexity over nine different themed worlds. Each level features several interconnected platforms holding a number of "dominoes". The aim is to rearrange the dominoes, such that with a single push, all of the dominoes are toppled, thus opening the exit to the next level. There are 11 different types of domino, identified by red and yellow patterns, each with different actions. The player controls G.I. Ant, who can move certain dominoes by carrying them one at a time. If Ant dies, the player has to restart the level. Each level has a time limit and various factors can result in failure to complete it - often there is only a single solution. The final level must be completed using dominoes with hidden markings. ● Repton Series – 1985–2018 A computer game developed for the BBC Micro and Acorn Electron, and later for iPhone / iPod Touch and Android. Repton — the titular protagonist — is moved around an underground maze in a quest to find all the diamonds (some are held in safes, their release being triggered by finding and collecting a key) within a time limit for each of 12 levels, while avoiding being trapped or killed by falling rocks and monsters hatched from eggs.

Old Puzzle videogames — 3/4 ● Page 9 of 14 The new versions of Repton (for the PC, iOS and Android) introduce additional levels as well as jigsaw puzzle pieces to collect — being, technically, more challenging. The series includes : - Repton - Repton 2 - Repton 3 - Repton Infinity - EGO: Repton 4 - Repton: The Lost Realms. Later puzzle-based games such as Bonecruncher and Clogger might justifiably be said to be derivative of Repton. ● Solomon's Key (also known as Zipang or Solomon's Club) – 1986 A puzzle game developed for arcade on Z80 chipset, the Nintendo Entertainment System and Commodore 64 and later for PC, Game Boy and NES. The player, controlling a sorcerer known only as Dana must overcome unlimited enemy spawning, challenging level designs, a countdown timer, instant death from any physical contact with enemies, and limited ways to dispatch enemies. Dana is sent to retrieve Solomon's Key to restore the world to light from demons that were accidentally released. The object of the game is to advance through the 50 rooms of "Constellation Space" by acquiring a key to the door that leads to the next room before a timer runs out. The game incorporates elements of the platform shooter genre. Dana can run, jump, create or destroy orange blocks adjacent to him as well as create fireballs to destroy demons. There are 64 levels in total, of which 15 are secret and one is the final level. The main 48 levels are divided into groups of 4 with one group for each of the 12 Zodiac constellation (in order, Aries, Taurus. Gemini, Cancer, Leo, Virgo, Libra, Scorpio, Sagittarius, Capricorn, Aquarius and Pisces). The final level is called Solomon's room. Each constellation has a secret bonus room which can only be accessed by finding a seal for the constellation in the last room of the group. The other three levels are Page of Time, Page of Space and the Princess Room, which occur only if the player has acquired the hidden Seals of Solomon.

Old Puzzle videogames — 3/4 ● Page 10 of 14 ● Sutte Hakkun Suite – 1997 An action puzzle game developed for Nintendo (Japan). Sutte Hakkun falls into the category of a side-scrolling, level-based action puzzle game — a genre best represented by the Lode Runner series. The player controls Hakkun and attempts to gather up the rainbow shards distributed across each level. Several types of traps and characters are prepared in each level, some of which help Hakkun and others which may obstruct his path. The most important of these are the red, blue and yellow bottles and transparent blocks. Hakkun can suck out colors from each bottle and insert them into the transparent blocks to make them move in different directions A level is completed when the player finds all of the hidden shards. Levels are arranged simplistically at the start of the game, but become highly complex and difficult near the end. The goal is to find all of the shards hidden in the game. Five versions of the game exist : - Sutte Hakkun Event Version - Sutte Hakkun - Sutte Hakkun BS Version 2 - Sutte Hakkun '98 Winter Event Version - Sutte Hakkun In 2017, an English fan translation of the game was released.

Multiple character control

● Gobliiins Series – 1991 A puzzle adventure video game series released for the Amiga, Atari ST, DOS and and later for iOS and Windows platforms. The games mix elements of adventure and puzzle gaming. In essence, the player must find the solution to each area (or level), consisting of one or more screens, in order to progress to the next. An original aspect of the series is that the player usually controls multiple goblins as player characters, each of whom has a unique set of abilities. In the title, the amount

Old Puzzle videogames — 3/4 ● Page 11 of 14 of letters "i" in the word 'Goblin' indicates the number of characters that the player may control. The player may only control one character at a time but, depending on the specific scene, may switch characters at will. The original Gobliiins features a shared health system for all three characters, which meant that leaving characters in the wrong place could be detrimental. The game is linear and consists of 22 levels, each of which occupies a single screen. The puzzles on each level must be successfully solved in order to progress to the next. All games of the series are available in CD format. They are : - Gobliiins - Gobliins 2: The Prince Buffoon - Goblins Quest 3 - Gobliiins 4. ● The Brainies (or Tiny Skweeks) – 1996 A puzzle game released on the Super Nintendo Entertainment System console and Atari ST, Amiga, Apple IIgs, Macintosh and Amstrad CPC computers. The gameplay revolves around Mexican jumping beans (the Brainies) as they navigate 101 levels to solve the puzzles that are in their way. A time limit is in effect — running out of time means losing a life. Players can only control the direction in which a Brainy will walk, taking care not to bump into another Brainy or an obstacle. There are four difficulty levels and the object is to return the Mexican jumping beans safely home. ● The Lost Vikings – 1993 A puzzle-platform video game released for the Super NES, the Amiga, Amiga CD32, MS-DOS and Mega Drive/Genesis systems and emulated later through DOSBox. The player controls three separate Vikings with different abilities. The three Vikings must work together to finish each level and find their way back home. Every level is designed such that each Viking must contribute his unique skills to help the other two through to the end. Similarly, to finish the level, all three characters must reach the exit point. The Vikings each have three health points which they can lose by getting hurt by enemies or by falling from great

Old Puzzle videogames — 3/4 ● Page 12 of 14 heights. Should any Viking run out of health points, he dies; gameplay will then continue with any remaining Vikings, but the level becomes unwinnable, and the player will eventually have to restart the level and try again. However, the game offers unlimited continues. A sequel — The Lost Vikings 2 — was released in 1997. Computer Gaming World called The Lost Vikings "a clever blend of comedy and role playing". ● Pingus – 1998 An open-source video game for Unix-like, Mac OS X and . Single-player puzzle game, it is a clone of Lemmings with penguins instead of lemmings. Pingus has 55 levels, grouped into 5 level sets, as well as 21 winter-themed tutorial levels. Levels in levelsets (term introduced later) usually must be completed in order. There are many more levels included with the game not accessible from its GUI, some with entirely different graphics. It was the first "Game of the Month" by The Linux Game Tome and among the "Top 10 Free Linux games" in 2006. ● Lemmings Series – 1991–2000 A puzzle-platformer video game originally developed for the Amiga and later ported for numerous other platforms. Lemmings inspired several sequels, including the Christmas Lemmings short games that were released between 1991 and 1994 and the 1991 expansion Oh No! More Lemmings. Stand-alone sequels were Lemmings 2: The Tribes (1993), All New World of Lemmings (1994), 3D Lemmings (1995) and Lemmings Revolution (2000). Two spin-off games were also made — both in 1996 — Lemmings Paintball and The Adventures of Lomax. Numerous clones of Lemmings were made. One of the first was The Humans, released for the Amiga in 1992. General game concepts have been included in the open source Pingus. In 2010, it was announced that Lemmings would be ported to the iOS operating system. By mid-1995, Lemmings and its sequels had accumulated combined sales of more than 4 million units worldwide. Lemmings has been called a predecessor of the modern

Old Puzzle videogames — 3/4 ● Page 13 of 14 real-time strategy (RTS) . Lemmings is divided into a number of levels, grouped into four difficulty categories. Each level begins with one or more trap doors opening from above, releasing a steady line of lemmings that all follow each other. Levels include a variety of obstacles — large drops, booby traps and pools of lava — that prevent lemmings from reaching the exit. The goal is to guide at least a certain percentage of the green-haired, blue-robed lemmings from the entrance to the exit by clearing or creating a safe passage through the landscape for the lemmings to use. The original Lemmings also has 20 two-player levels. The goal is to get more lemmings (regardless of colour) into one's own base than the other player.

Source : Wikipedia

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