Denki Blocks!

"Solve puzzles by making a mess, sort of."

Denki Blocks(DB) is just another example of how the GameBoy Advance is well suited to puzzle games that don't need the high resolution or big screen of a regular console. For a game where you just push blocks about, DB gives a splendid range of puzzles as well. They're challenging enough that you don't feel spoon-fed, but at the same time you are usually able to progress consistently. There's very little repetition, and the game's perfunctory attempt at plot is entertaining. Yep, it's another puzzle game I like to whip out to procrastinate more important things which would probably take less time and though. And based on how much I enjoyed it I'm even more vulnerable to the next one.

DB consists of eight levels of twenty-five puzzles. Solve any fifteen and you advance to the next. Each puzzle grid is sixteen by sixteen, with blocks of up to four different colors, and when two blocks of the same color get next to each other, they lump together. Then the lumps, as lumps are wont to do, lump some more. The object is to bring them all together into one shape for each color, and often the result looks much less orderly and symmetrical than how things started out. It's like untangling a giant knot by throwing in a few extra twists at first, and if you're not content with just solving things, you can also get a pleasing but useless bonus if you manage to put different colored lumps in the same shape.

Although there's a context menu to back up a move, reset the game or quit, you'll only need to use the directional pad to move blocks around. Push left once, and all the lumps try to move left. If there is an immovable white block in the way, or if any part of a lump is against the edge, then it will not move. Sometimes this is a good thing, as there may be one blue block you need to move out from inside a bulky yellow lump. Other times it may be ruinous as two yellow lumps may be trapped in place, unable to reach each other.

I found doing the minimum to pass a level took about an hour, until the finale, which made me miss what passes for a meal in my bachelor pad. So DB is quite fair(I even made a point of trying some levels I'd gotten by accident,) and given the mushy graphics I suspect the audience it's trying to captivate will be glad to give it several tries before it seems too frustrating. That number might even increase but unfortunately the take-back option only repeals one move at a time, and with the control pad the blocks can go skidding across a bit, so for a game with cute graphics directed at kids this seems harsh. And in the puzzles where it's more obvious what to do but harder to execute it, this is very frustrating, especially when the GBA feels a bit over-responsive.

Fortunately it's not too hard to remember general concepts as the game has mixes many stock tricks so they don't get old. For instance you'll have a bunch of unit blocks that you need to connect two blue squares that are frozen in place, but once you do that they'll form a barricade and you won't be able to lump the yellows below together. It's fun to try to plan to avoid these the first time, but often you can just be expedient and focus on one color, and it's pretty clear what to do next. The game offers 'par' for each course and an excruciatingly fast time, but the pressure of putting the right moves together is really enough.

Because it's very tense as you try to figure out if you can still solve the puzzle from the position you're in, or you're schlepping small blocks around a huge lump or through a maze of sliding blocks that seal off passages most rudely. You will also grow monstrous snakes out of what were once simple L's, lines, or even unit boxes, and there's always a good amount of finagling over whether you made the right sort of bloated figure that will stop exactly when you want it to and a good share of instances where you just need to put two final pieces together, and if you only had one more square of mobility.

Some of the puzzles don't have a logical starting point, and I wound up solving them by accident, just lumping things together and hoping they'd work out from there. Others had a tempting move at the beginning that seemed pretty obvious, and there's enough sifting of the logical versus the nasty trick that you will get mad at the game if you play too long. Once I got to the final level, where I could no longer skip around until I saw something that looked easy enough, I found myself chronically working backwards. By the end you can revel in how none of your solutions are by accident, but at the same time there's a gray area for generally lumping blocks together that you can't explain, which feels spontaneous after the logical part is finished.

But DB isn't totally egg-headed, as if you're over ten the effects will seem overdone and probably more disturbing than if you're under. Because the plot consists of some kid who clearly drinks toothpaste milkshakes three meals a day(it may be the island's official drink, in fact) going in and helping Jessop the Wizard get to the Puzzle Master in Willy Wonka attire. Various fantasy monsters have laid out each puzzle level: there's a dragon with glasses, jester monkey twins, and a witch named Mildred who is grouchy from years of kissing all the frogs she could find(not one turned into a prince.) Some are friendlier than others and react differently when you solve or give up on a puzzle. Oh, and if you thought about it, you've probably guessed everyone's head is double the normal radius. It really goes into details being disturbingly cute and strict old-schoolers may be upset that the blocks are rounded at the edges(the tougher to hurt little kids with, I guess,) but the concept is simple enough that they can probably go port this to JAVA in short order, which sadly seems the only way to create levels.

Unfortunately the syrupy part gets sticky with the music that plays during the game. It's consistently drippy(even when it changes at the last level) and a necessary evil if you want to catch the glopping noise that signals you've lumped two shapes together. I'm glad the GBA isn't big on vocals because the song would probably feature some Mr. Rogers wannabe singing about how rain is okay even if it brings me down a bit 'cause once it's gone it will have watered the pretty flowers anyway. Unfortunately there's also some less aesthetic interference with graphics; if you should lump all the green pieces together, they seem to dissolve into the checkerboard and force you to squint to see them. They seem to have forgotten that the players don't have big bulging eyes that can suck in detail.

But these are really only minor flaws in the execution, and despite being evident enough you wonder how testers missed them, they won't sour you on DB's excellent puzzles. It's about the closest you can get to Play-Doh, those excellent globs of clay that even tasted nice and salty, without all the pick-up mess or ruined lumps once you mix colors, and many of the levels are thought provoking. There's not much fluff in the game--or loading time--and you can just jump right in, mess around, fail embarrassingly and try again without feeling dumb. You don't even have to solve many of the puzzles to win the game. It seems there are plenty of block pushing games like this to discover, enough people to design good puzzles from it, and plenty of programmers who don't want to deal with complex graphics libraries but need to put food on the table. I sympathize heartily with the latter, and games like DB make it pretty clear their efforts are worth it.

Danke!
--very easy to learn, intuitive idea, fun to futz about
--strong variety of puzzles
--lasts a long while without lulls, very absorbing
--you can even laugh at the plot

Dinky
--bad music
--I'd like 2 take-backs in a row
--can't make new levels

Reviewer's Score: 8/10, Originally Posted: 09/22/03