Reviewed: July 27, 2002
Reviewed by: Mark Smith

Publisher
Dexterity Software

Developer
Nuclide

Released: May, 2002
Genre: Puzzle
Players: 1
ESRB: Everyone

8
7
5
9
8.2

System Requirements

Penguin Puzzle is one of these games, and while it may never see the financial success of the major software titles released each year, it is certainly no less deserving of your time or money. This is one of those rare games that is so original I cannot even call upon another game to make a comparison, so please bear with me while I try to communicate just how deviously simple and highly addictive this title truly is.

Penguin Puzzle is a puzzle game (in case you didn’t get that from the title) yet it still manages to incorporate a short, albeit unnecessary storyline. Basically, a freak blizzard has frozen all the creatures of the North Pole into nice little brightly colored ice cubes. It’s your job to free them. Told you it was short.

You start with an empty section of glacier occupied with only a few colored cubes. You must slide these cubes around to form 2x2 blocks of matching colored cubes. When you do, the blocks shatter and release the trapped animals. Each time you slide a block and fail to form a 2x2 block several more blocks will appear.

You can tell what color and where these blocks will appear by the swirling patterns on the ice. As your skill increases you will learn to work with these dots and the incoming cubes, so you can block their arrival or even form your patterns around these dots. Then, when the cubes do arrive they fill in the missing gaps and complete patterns automatically.

New cubes are constantly filling up the playfield creating a subtle intensity to always plan ahead and eliminate those matching colors before it gets too crowded to move. Only when you have no more moves is the game over. Naturally, if you are pretty good at this game you can expect countless hours in front of your computer.

When I sat down to play my first game it was midnight. When I finally saw the message “No More Moves” it was 4:20am. This game sucks you in and time stands still, or rather you stand still and the world leaves you behind. This game is so addicting it should have a warning from the Surgeon General. You will lose sleep, miss meals, work, school; your kids will grow up and move away. Make sure to get a copy for your wife or girlfriend or you will lose her too. You STNG fans out there may recall the episode with the video game headsets that had the entire crew of the Enterprise addicted. Penguin Puzzle is just like that only without the pleasure impulses being shot into your brain – darn!

Sliding cubes around and forming 2x2 blocks might start to get boring after a few hundred levels so the designers have incorporated a few things to mix-up the gameplay. At anytime during the game you can be working toward completing a Bonus Pattern. This pattern is shown in the Bonus Box and usually consists of six or more blocks arranged in some design. The good news is that once the pattern is complete all cubes will shatter and you get a Bonus Item. The bad news is that you normally have to make five or six moves to complete these patterns causing many new blocks to appear in the level.

Bonus items are very useful, especially in later levels where things start to fill up fast, and the levels start including large rocks that block your moves. Bonus items like the stick of dynamite will blow up large sections of cubes regardless of color, and any rocks that may be blocking the level. The rainbow cube allows you to remove all blocks of any color of your choosing and the tornado cube allows you to create a twister that zips around the level under its own random pattern destroying any cubes in its path.

Every fifth level is a Bonus Level. You start with a full screen of blocks and start clicking on sections of matching colors. You only need two connecting blocks to shatter the cubes but if you can shatter seven or more at once you get a bonus item. Clear the entire field for big bonus points.

There are three skill levels and two gameplay modes to choose from, timed and un-timed. Kids will probably find the Easy and Normal skill levels an adequate challenge. My first game was on the Easy skill level and it probably never would have ended if I hadn’t started taking wild and crazy chances trying to create the bonus patterns. Even so, my first game lasted over four hours and well over 100 levels.

Bumping the skill level up to Hard ramped the difficulty significantly; so much in fact that I didn’t even make it to my first bonus level (level 5) on my first two tries. If you plan on maintaining any normal existence away from your computer then I highly recommend playing the “timed” games or playing on the harder difficulty settings.

The game runs in the standard 800x600 SVGA mode and can be played in a window or full-screen. Those of you running your desktop in 32-bit color mode (as I was) will be forced into a full-screen mode.

The colors are bright and cheerful and will delight kids and adults alike. Each cube is one of several vibrant colors with various arctic creatures frozen inside. You can just make out their embossed shape on the cube. When the cubes shatter the creatures come to life, turning into their regular colors as they fall to the bottom of the screen in a shower of icy shards.

Special effects are minimal but when they do occur they are really fun to watch. The swirling tornado is done really well, and I found myself watching it intently on numerous occasions as it randomly zipped around the screen blasting apart the colored cubes.

The menus are simple with only a few large buttons to click on to get you started. Kids as young as four or five should have no trouble navigating the menus or playing this game. In fact, it is a great tool for teaching preschoolers basic problem solving, colors, and pattern matching.

The music is equally as cute but also fairly annoying and repetitive. Ultimately, I opted to turn down the music after the first hour and listened to a CD or the TV – anything to maintain my contact with reality.

I’ve spent $50 on countless games that didn’t offer a fraction of the gameplay value that Penguin Puzzle packs into a $20 game that takes up a mere 28mb on your hard drive. It’s uncanny how such a simple concept with an unsophisticated yet entertaining audio and video presentation can simply appear out of nowhere – but that is one of the many joys of the Shareware universe.

Penguin Puzzle is pure and simple fun that will invade your computer, take over your home, and steal your life. Its low system requirements make it accessible to just about anyone with a PC, and the non-violent and simple gameplay makes it perfect for the entire family whether you are six or sixty.

And since it's shareware you don't even have to take my word for it. Download your copy today and try it out. You will find it is well worth the $19 for the full copy and with a 60-day money-back guarantee you have nothing to lose but a few hundred hours of your life.