Game Reviews, Puzzle Game Reviews, Strategy Game Reviews > Puzzle City Review by Meryl

Puzzle City Review by Meryl

Most people won’t spend their free time wondering what Tetris would be like if it went sideways and had to fit into a set board. The answer is that it looks like Puzzle City with a little Sim City thrown in. The result? A fun twist and change of pace for Tetris fans without Sim City’s complexity.

Meet no nonsense boss, Mz. Towers and the friendly foreman who shows you around. Mz. Towers sets the goals and expects their successful completion. Both characters pop in with dialog to motivate me, to insult me, or to provide a little comic relief. The foreman loves to order pizza while Mz. Tower questions hiring me. Usually, I’m too busy to read the dialog, but it mostly repeats a handful of phrases.

A level consists of a grid that varies in sizes. Some grids are narrow while others are quirky and full of angles. A conveyor belt sits on the bottom of the game screen rolling out the blocks for placing on the grid. These blocks range from one to four pieces creating different shapes.

Not only do I fit pieces into the grid, but also I must pay attention to areas highlighted in a specific color. Colors represent the type of building such as aqua for a shopping center, yellow for factory, green for homes, and blue for police station. Sometimes I can’t tell what color blocks belong in a highlighted area, but the game doesn’t allow putting in wrong colored pieces into highlighted areas.

Mz. Towers might give orders where you must build a 2×2 police station or a 3×3 hospital. I’ve blown that a few times especially when there were no highlighted areas. Since the conveyor belt stops for no one, I feel like Lucy at the candy factory when trying to manage pieces that I forget about the objectives leaving no room to build a 2×2 or 3×3 building. Sometimes I want to throttle the grid or Mz. Towers, but it’s all in fun as Puzzle City offers a diversity of challenges.

The game contains two types of power ups. One affects items on the conveyor belt and the other affects pieces. The latter power ups include a tractor for destroying buildings to make room for more, a recycler for changing the shape of an existing piece, and a trash bin for recycling pieces (This is a very green company!).

Conveyor belt power ups appear just below the belt (OK, I can just hear the quips flying). Dynamite blows away all pieces currently on the belt. Spray paint randomly changes the color of the current pieces. Other power ups include freezing the conveyor belt for a few seconds, reversing the conveyor belt, and (my favorite) the hammer for converting pieces into one-block pieces. Some levels spoil me with power ups while others have me dying for one or the right one.

My favorite part is the mysterious “special building.” Its brown pieces only come in single blocks. When all the blocks fill in the highlighted space, the building materializes and angels sing its praises. These special buildings should come along more often.

Due to the randomness of the pieces, it’s easy to get trapped and replay a level a few times. The game takes luck and strategy. Puzzle City brings out all kinds of emotions from euphoria in finally making through a tough level to aggravation in watching your belt fill up with no help in sight.

The second game mode, untimed, requires reaching a specific score rather than completing objectives. I don’t care for this mode especially since I could not move pass level 3-4 even after reaching the minimum score many times. Story mode is the stronger of the two, but I wonder if I would want to play the game again once I finish it. With Puzzle City’s having an arcade element, it should be possible to create an arcade version without a story.

I ran into a technical glitch where the game freezes when the puzzle pieces cover all of the squares. Other than that, Puzzle City’s colorful cartoon characters and upbeat music give it a neat spin on Tetris while bringing something novel to the casual games arena.

We give Puzzle City a 3.5/5 diamond rating

Diamond! No Diamond!