Another “unique and exciting puzzle game.” Uh-huh, whatever. Thanks to the attack of the clones after Tetris, Bejeweled, et all, finding worthy newcomers amidst the dreck is as much fun as searching for a missing jigsaw piece.
Boxisics isn’t even an original; it’s a port of the online Flash game Blosics with fewer features. But after buying it for reasons not entirely clear – other than the phrase “anti-gravity blocks” piquing my curiosity – I’m almost ashamed to admit it’s addicting. More a flirtation than a long-term romance, but there haven’t been many of those with puzzlers in recent years.
This is basically an amped-up version of the carnival milk bottle toss, where you get three whiffle balls to knock a stack of lead bottles off a platform. In Boxisics the targets are boxes (duh), but green ones award five points and red ones take five away. You need to score 100 points on a level to move on, with new levels adding new challenges in a not-entirely-linear progression of difficulty.
The ball you toss is somewhat more complex than your average whiffle. You place your finger on a circle that marks the launch point, drag your finger back to control angle and velocity (longer is faster), and release. Also, the longer you hold your finger down, the larger the ball grows – along with its knock-down power. Launching a barrage of cannon balls would be the obvious strategy except each shot costs points and, of course, large balls costs more than small.
If any of this is unclear, a friendly and thorough tutorial is included. The first few levels are easy enough for klutzes and you can restart a level as many times as necessary (although doing so can keep “achievements” from being unlocked). Furthermore, you can quit and resume where you left off, although a minor irritant is progress is only saved for one player.
There’s 20 levels in the initial release and, while not all are terribly clever, most make good use of features like icy surfaces and deflecting walls to present logical challenges. Some even have an action element, with a quick trigger finger needed to topple or prevent the toppling of blocks, and there’s always the prospect of trying to tap “Next” to move up a level before falling red blocks bring your points below the magic 100.
Boxisics is lacking or modifies a number of features from its online counterpart, but I find the iPhone port far superior simply because the Flash version plods at an agonizingly slow pace with horrible frame skipping on my year-old Mac. Seller Brian Kechel is also promising more features and levels in a coming update (including those anti-gravity blocks), and there’s enough right now to stay occupied until that happens.
One notable negative: The game locked up and returned to the main iPhone menu when I took screenshots. I doubt this will affect many players, but anytime something has bugs it makes me leery of what else might strike during circumstances not anticipated by the developer.
There’s a ceiling for this genre – they’re not going to have the depth or gee-whiz factor of GTA Chinatown Wars. But Boxisics succeeds at what a good puzzler should, allowing you to play for a few minutes or an hour, walk away and come back without feeling like you’ve lost your prowess.
Rating: 7 out of 10
Mark Sabbatini
Boxisics by Kechbs Software (Developer’s– website)
$0.99
Platform Reviewed: iPhone/iPod (Requires iPhone OS 3.1 or later)
Genre: Puzzle
Languages Supported: English
Rating: 4+
File Size: 4.8 MB
