Puxxle (Game Review)

Puxxle is a difficult name to type (my fingers want to type puzzle) but a cool game. The developer (Cat Wee Corner) is also difficult because my fingers want to type Wee Cat Corner. But in Twitter picture, the developer explains that he shares his office with a cat litter box.

Litter box on the right, Mac Mini on the left. Cozy game studio in Northumberland, UK. @CatWeeCorner. http://www.catweecorner.com.

From tiny acorns grow mighty oaks. And a very cool puzzle game. When you start it up, you get this:

Very professional, very clean. I like the How To Play. I like it even more when I get there, because it is a movie that shows you exactly how it works.

You have your main board at the top and three smaller boards at the bottom that you move pieces from. Touch and drag. For example, the top has an upside-down "L" shape and when I drag the piece on the left, I get this:

And so on. When you add them together so that at least four squares of the same color are touching, those squares disappear. The How to Play shows you this. Cool. We like instructions.

We also like Options. Here's the options for this game:

The Music and SFX (sound effects) are obvious and the music has a nice beat. I give it a 7, Dick. The About is interesting, giving credit where credit is due:

I'm not sure how Entypo pictograms works, but I'd like to know more. Nice credits for the GEO font and the music from http://www.freesfx.co.uk. I'll have to check them out!

Playing this is fun and relaxing. Kind of like Tetris but without the time stress. Start with a blank board at the top.

Here are two tips that might have been useful in the How to Play.

Tip 1: You can rotate the pieces in the bottom three boards by tapping on them.

Tip 2: When you're ready to move, tap and hold underneath the piece you want to move.

For example, I tapped on the middle piece once to rotate it clockwise, and then tap-and-hold under the middle piece to move it to the main board.

 Another piece takes its place. Now I  tap the left piece three times so that I can have two yellow next to the two yellows on the main board. The result is looks like this.

 Then I tap the piece on the left once and move it onto the board. Nothing disappears because I need four or more of one color touching.

 I then move the right piece without rotating onto the board to connect five purple, leaving two red and one yellow behind.

You'll notice that my score is now 63. If I hit the Menu button at the top, I get this:

Back To Game takes you back to the game, Options takes you to the Options screen, Restart Game takes you back to the beginning, and Quit ... quits!

If you quit, and then go back to the game, you can see your score in the High Scores from the opening screen.

This game is just about perfect. It has everything working well and has a soothing puzzle quality that lets you keep your brain active without pumping your adrenalin. Well done, Cat Wee! I can't wait to see what they will do next.

Cost: Free

Genre: Puzzle
Score: 5 (out of 5)
Tested on: ZTE Open (Firefox OS)
Get it at: Firefox Marketplace