PUZZLEJUICE review

I first heard of the iOS Game Puzzlejuice via Greg Wohlwend’s blog post on the subject just a few weeks ago. I’m always a fan of the work Greg does (he is the art behind this game, and some of my old games too), and I was looking forward to playing.

I was expecting good things from this game. What I got was a face-full of unexpected awesome from indie developer Asher Vollmer.

But first: What is it?

The recipe looks a bit like this:

• Start with 2 parts Tetris
• Mix in 2 parts Boggle
• Stir in 1 part Bejewelled

Instead of your Tetris-like rows disappearing when you clear them, they instead turn into letters – that you must make words with to clear from the screen, in a similar fashion to the iOS game Wurdle.

The gameplay is balanced beautifully. I have just enough time - and not a second more - to ignore the falling blocks and spell a few words, before I must switch back. I find myself constantly juggling between Tetris skill-set and my Boggle skill-set… But my Tetris skills are old and rusty, and my Boggle skills are not accustomed to this speed of processing and level of perpetual distraction.

If I was a particularly good player, I might even start paying attention to what colors my falling blocks are – as the match-3 component appears to be pivotal to keeping my score multipliers alive.

It’s about managing priorities.

Any other match-3 or falling-block games get increasingly stressful and difficult as you begin to lose at the game and screen real-estate disappears. Not so with PuzzleJuice. Being close to failure on the falling-block game probably means you have an entire screen full of letters to string words together with. The longer your words, the bigger their “explosive block-clearing radius”, thus dramatically decreasing the height of your stack.

From where I’m standing, the idea behind Puzzlejuice is to give you three things to think about, which ends up being one too many. – Greg Wohlwend

It’s all about managing priorities. I’ll admit I’m fairly terrible at it now, but I’ll bet in 4 months I’ll be astounding myself with the leap in mental processing I’ve made.

The execution is awesome.

PuzzleJuice isn’t just a well-designed, incredibly-balanced game, though. It’s polished in just about every way. Sure, it has a minor technical glitch or two, but I am playing a pre-release version still in development. Even then, there are some really nice chromed bits – it even has one of those “under-the-finger” pop-up windows that is so useful on touch devices, and yet so conspicuously absent in actual availability.

In pursuit of enjoyable scaling difficulty: you are now guaranteed to have a vowel next to a consonant (and vice versa) early game. – Asher Vollmer

The menus are slick and fast, the design easily leads the eye to where it needs to be, the interface is clean, and the whole ordeal is just incredibly polished. From the font selection, the tone of voice and language used (more on that soon), the pacing, the tutorial, the awesome tunes by Jimmy Hinson, the unlock progression…

This game obviously reflects the ton of work that must have gone into it.

The interface language is human.

There’s no “OK” buttons or “NEXT” prompts. Everything is spelled out, as if the game was an old friend encouraging you on. I chuckled when I unlocked an item, and the dialogue box was closeable by clicking “SO COOL!”. It’s little touches like this that not only humanize the game, but also help my own mindset on the right path. This isn’t some cold, Russian game of skill - this is a friendly, fun jaunt with an awesome game.

I’m even inclined to call the “Tutorial” the “Introduction.” This game places a hand on your shoulder and introduces you to every single awesome guy at this party.

The challenge system is great, and way better than achievements.

The one thing I really liked about the iOS game JetPack Joyride (by Halfbrick) was their awesome “Challenges” system. Instead of a long list of possible achievements, JPJ and PuzzleJuice both present you with three clear, distinct goals that you can focus on right now to get to the next level of gameplay.

This kind of direction (and structured design in the challenges themselves) makes the gameplay last a lot longer for people easily distracted, like me.

As a final word.

As a developer, this game makes me feel downright shameful for all the corners I cut. My levels of polish were never this high, not even with SteamBirds or Protonaut (my two most polished games to date). I am humbled.

I hope PuzzleJuice goes on to see a bajillion sales. You should be a proud owner of this gem – even if you are just a developer with no interest in the gameplay, you can learn a lot from the amount of polish and solid design here. As an artist, you can pick up some amazing cues from the art direction. As a gamer you’ll have a lot of fun, actually learn some things and improve your vocabulary and such. And if you just don’t care about any of that? Own it, just to own a part of indie history.

Feel free to add me to your GameCenter list if you want a challenger! My username is “weasello”.

(PuzzleJuice launches January 19th 2012 on the iPhone/iPad/iTouch AppStore)