Hatris

"Why are there no touques in this game?"

It took me a while to warm up to Hatris, which is a bizarre concept to say the least. Though the name and basic concept mimic Tetris, the game is a departure from Tetris and its other clones in a number of ways.
In Hatris, the falling blocks of Tetris are replaced by falling hats. Top hats, cowboy hats, baseball caps, derbys, dunce caps and crowns. The setting is a hat factory, where hats are dropped down from a conveyer belt two at a time and must be stacked on one of six mannequin heads. Once five hats of the same kind have been stacked on top of each other, they fall down onto another conveyer belt below and are shipped out of the factory, rewarding the player with a cash bonus. (The game keeps track of score as money, not simply points.)

Because the hats are being stacked on top of someone’s head, the player is concerned only with vertical matches, unlike Tetris or Dr. Mario where horizontal combinations are also possible. This adds a very interesting new dimension to the gameplay and increases the difficulty significantly. The fact that two hats drop at the same time is another challenge, because while one hat may complete a stack, its partner may land somewhere where it is not useful at all, and disrupt a stack in the making. Luckily, once the first hat has landed on a stack, the second hat continues to fall and can b moved left or right with the control pad independently of the first hat. This is extremely useful, provided that the stacks are of different heights. You can also use a button to reverse the order of the hats as they fall (i.e. exchange the left hat with the right hat).

After you stack a certain number of hats, the drop rate will increase. You can also choose which level of difficulty to begin on at the start menu. There isn’t a huge amount of variety between the levels; basically all that changes are the styles of mannequin heads, which range from a brown haired moustached man to a weird Frankenstein head.

The game is fairly challenging, but not in a stupid and unfair way like Wordtris. Game Over happens in the traditional way for falling block games, when a stack of hats reaches so high that it touches the top of the screen. Some hats are easier to clear than others because of their differing sizes. For example, the top hats and dunce caps are taller and therefore take up more space, so one has to be careful with them or a stack will build up very quickly.

Despite the strange concept, Hatris is a fun game that can be quite addictive. It suffers a little from drab graphics that are way too orange to be tasteful, and the lack of variety was also disappointing in that there are only six different types of hats. It would have been far more interesting from a visual perspective to have at least ten or fifteen hats of different colors and sizes to work with. It’s too bad that Hatris never really caught on and has become a rarity these days, because I’m sure that an expanded version for the Nintendo 64 or even the Super Nintendo would have been much improved and expanded.

As it is, Hatris stands as a now obscure concept that was perhaps a little too strange and underdeveloped to achieve mainstream popularity. It’s a shame really, since it’s a decent game and certainly worth playing if you like the falling block genre.

Summary of Pros
-unique and interesting concept
-one of the better Tetris-esque games in terms of control, challenge and fairness

Summary of Cons
-drab and uninspired graphics
-lack of variety: only six different hats

Reviewer's Score: 7/10, Originally Posted: 12/17/02, Updated 05/06/03