Sync-Ball promises a challenging game with intuitive gameplay. “The learning curve is pretty gentle,” says Tozai Games President, Sheila Boughten. “We tested Sync-Ball with gamers and non-gamers. And everyone seemed to get it within just a few moves.”

Sync-Ball was designed by Brett Ballow who also designed last year’s Lode Runner for Xbox LIVE Arcade. Ballow describes Sync-Ball as “a stress-free challenge, because there’s no time limit or penalty for restarting a level as often as you want. On the other hand, as you progress to later levels and contend with three then four balls at a time, the challenge really picks up. And with eight stages and 80 levels in the game, there are plenty of times when even the best puzzle players will be stumped…at least for a little while, I hope.”

Sync-Ball is currently available from the Apple Apps Store for $.99.

To solve a room puzzle, you don’t have to place everything perfectly, only manage to put the pieces together so that Chris can find his way out of the room. As part of the larger part of the game, you’ll also have to pick up certain items to unlock different areas in the mansion. On the Wii, you use the Wiimote to manage selection of items, negotiation of room piece movement and just about everything else. However, even on a large television I found a lot of this difficult because the game is not very well rendered, and even where it might be detailed, the puzzles don’t take up the entire real estate on my television screen like it could. Honestly, I felt like this might not be best suited for the Wii, and might instead be better for the Nintendo DS, which the game will also be available for soon. This isn’t a huge surprise for those that might already be familiar with the flash version of the game that came out in 2007. The game isn’t a direct port, but the graphics haven’t been expanded much.

The full game promises more than 100 puzzles as you play through the Room mansion, so if you’re a fan of puzzle games, I’d say this game would definitely be worth checking out. Even though I wasn’t completely sold on the game for the Wii, had I had the full game at my fingertips, I 100% positive I would’ve tried to crank through the 100+ puzzles. It’s just the sort of great puzzle game that lends itself to hours of mostly mindless game play, that makes it worth the money.

You’ll be able to find the game the 23rd of this Month.

Literally taken, a sidehill gouger is an imaginary creature with uneven legs. If you ever see one out in the forest, start looking for Bigfoot, because he’s probably not all that far away. Here at GA, though, we want to talk about a sidehill gouger, we probably mean the indie game developed by Canned Games. (If an “Imaginary Creature Angels” section ever gets started, you’ll hear it here first, though.)

Rating: E (There is no ESRB rating since this is an indie game)
Players: 1
Genre: Puzzle
Publisher: Canned Games
System: Xbox 360 (80 MS points)
Release Date: December 15, 2009

BUY/PASS

Canned Games’ designers, Shannon Brownlee and Adam Culberson, have taken a beloved family story and set a puzzle game (dedicated to Everett “Grampy” Culberson) to it. It’s pretty simple.

Young Andrew is at summer camp and wants to go fishing when he recalls his Grampy’s advice: Beware the Sidehill Gouger. Each level, in a nutshell, requires you to find and shoot the Gouger with Andrew’s trusty slingshot.

I have one recommendation, as far as actual gameplay goes: Ignore the “How to Play” section given to you at the beginning. It’s a little confusing, and you’ll pick up everything you need to know in the first few levels anyway.

Move Andy around with the left stick to uncover bits of the 9×6 board, and aim his slingshot with the right stick. You’re given clues to the Gouger’s location with bits of blood on the ground, and, lest things get too easy, occasional potholes will befall you. Or you befall them. Either way, the level is over if you end up in one. Or if you let the monster-thing eat you. But I thought that went without saying.

You also uncover a couple of other creatures on your trek across the 54-square board: Treesqueaks and Hidebehinds. Treesqueaks live in trees, and they squeak. But one thing their name won’t tell you is that if you dare to cross its path again, it might just pick you up and drop you in an undisclosed location, kind of like the Secret Service does for the President in the event of a nearby disaster/bomb threat/upset wife. Hidebehinds hide behind things (Yeah! I know! It’s genius!) but may cover up the steps you’ve already taken once you cross its path. Altogether, these things don’t really impact gameplay that much, they just make it a little less predictable.

What Canned Games has done is make a Minesweeper clone. Granted, this is a Minesweeper clone where you do your best to blow up the mine once you think you know where it is, but still.

Of course, there are differences. Well, in Minesweeper, you get points. The timer also counts down to give you a finite amount of time to complete the board and gives you some level of urgency. When you finish a minesweeper board, maybe you even feel some sense of accomplishment. Sidehill Gouger…well, maybe this is because it’s meant for kids, but the timer counts up. As far as I know, there’s not a point where a level just says to you, “Okay, you’ve been doing this too long, you’re done.” And if it did, it wouldn’t matter — you’d just start the level over again with slightly moved pieces. Also, those points things? I can’t find any. You get “trophies” for completing “days,” and a “new best time” record set any time you finish a level particularly fast, but those just don’t particularly mean anything to me. (Once again, that could be because it’s probably for children.)

Overall, the aesthetic of the game is bright and colorful, and the art is like it’s attempting to be a lifelike cartoon. As far as the people go, anyway. A few of the boards were bright enough that I found it difficult to see the treesqueaks from time to time. This may be a design thing, but a few of the tiles become curves, and one curve always meets another. So, when you find a curve, you also are almost guaranteed to find another curve — and you can cross off finding the Gouger in that spot.

These kinds of puzzle games aren’t always my bag, and this isn’t any different. However, I was hoping that I could play at least ten minutes before I started hating myself. This isn’t to say that this game made me a bad person (man, I hope not), but I did eventually just start throwing all caution and patience to the wind as a result of having no reason to play carefully. When I got it right, I got it right within fifteen seconds. If I failed, I got Andrew eaten or stuck in a hole in twenty seconds or less. Not a huge waste of time.

I will admit that after a certain point, I just couldn’t do it anymore. The story from one day to the other…well, there really isn’t one. There’s a premise for the entire game in general, and from there I just assume that Andrew loves fishing so much that he’ll do it even with the promise of being eaten by a monster at least twenty times before he gets to the pier. You play on the same maps over and over again, and the same song is used repeatedly. Nothing that adds any excitement at all or takes away from what becomes an endless stream of potholes and imaginary creatures.

Because I’m so impatient, one feature in particular did make me laugh. At the bottom of the screen where you move between levels is a meter that measures your “streak,” how many levels you beat without failing. To me, that kind of became a joke in itself. I played this like I was running towards a cliff, and if I happened to shoot the Gouger, then yay. I’m sure that if you wanted to think and strategize this sort of thing, you could get a perfect streak going, but that’s definitely not for me. My streak was never higher than 1. I like action, and guns, and a storyline that lasts more than a few screens. Sidehill Gouger might be the perfect indie game for some of you out there, but not me.

I might have seen this game a lot differently if I were 12 years younger. As an 11 year-old, I loved these sorts of puzzle games and likely would have played it for at least two hours — well worth the buck it costs. But as an adult, I just don’t dig it that much. That said, if you want to entertain your kids, go ahead and pick this up. It’s clean fun with some sweetness behind it at a very affordable price, and where else can you find that these days?

When I first got Marble Saga: Kororinpa I was excited to check out what looked like it would be a very fun marble maze game. I had read about improvements that were going to be made from the first game, such as more levels, so I was looking forward to playing a revamped and fun puzzle game.
Rating: E for Everyone
Genre: Puzzle
Publisher: Hudson Soft
Release Date: March 17, 2009

RENT

In general the game is pretty fun. You have 150 stages to play through, each one featuring interesting twist and turns that you have to guide your marble through. The one part that is off is the weird story that they try to insert regarding Anthony the Ant who needs to get the Golden Sunflower. You can get through this dialogue fairly quickly and move into the various stages of the game. The first few stages get you used to the mechanics of the game such as magnetic rods, tubes and cannons that are used to move your marble around. As you progress the mazes will become trickier to get through and include many different twists and turns.

But with these new twists and turns come some issues with controls. As you can assume, holding your wiimote parallel will level out the map, and the basic tilts you can use are forward, backwards and side to side. However when it gets to moving the map around so you’re upside down, you will have to turn the controller into many different contortions, some of which made it hard to do the map routes precisely. This honestly got annoying as I progressed and it had me stop playing for a bit due to annoyance. There are also some levels designed for the balance board, but these controls are even less precise and more frustrating than the wiimote.

I did enjoy all of the different maps and the ways you had to solve them. They are pretty fun and challenging and the various themes that you can play through lend themselves nicely. Another feature, though it needs to be improved on, is the level designer. The controls are a bit clunky and it really takes some time to get the pieces where you want them, but hardcore fans will probably enjoy this part. Once a level is designed you can share them over Wii Connect 24.

All in all though I wasn’t too impressed. The attempt at putting a story into the mix was weak and the controls really could have been better. I didn’t enjoy having to tilt my wrist in a weird way or hold the wiimote upside down. But it is a pretty solid puzzle game overall, and I know that there are some big fans of the genre. If you want to check out this game I recommend renting it to see if you’d enjoy it as to me it’s a hit or miss.

Review product provided by Hudson Soft, and does not affect the outcome of this review.

The Treasures of Montezuma 2 features:

• 120 Adventure Mode levels for massive game play value, culminating in the reconstruction of the ancient capital of the Aztecs!
• An Endless Mode where players are challenged by increasingly intense game play, seeking out riches to their hearts’ content
• Three difficulty levels to engage everyone, from beginners to master treasure hunters
• Five hidden-object bonus levels to scour for secret caches and reveal the next challenge
• Fabulous 3D shading effects as a special bonus to iPhone 3GS & iPod Touch third generation owners!

Players match three tiles to earn high scores. The higher the score, the more opportunity to unlock trophies as player rebuild Aztec ruins. “The original game was highly regarded by casual gamers all over the world and I’m extremely happy to announce the release of its sequel,” said Kirill Plotnikov, Alawar’s vice president of publishing. “With even more robust game play and all-new game modes, this second installment is sure to please fans and newcomers alike.”

The Treasures of Montezuma 2 is currently available on the Apps Store for the iPhone/ iPod Touch.

Platform: PC
ESRB: E
Genre: Puzzle/Adventure Combo
Number of Players: 1
Publisher: Big Fish Games
Release Date: 10/2009
Official Website

A family with the gift of drawing items that then come to life is under attack from a king and his dark chancellor. The parents ask Franklin, the house servant, to take and protect their youngest daughter, Iris. She too has inherited her family’s gift of animation and entertains herself with the sketches to pass the time while separated from her family. That is, until the dark chancellor puts a curse on her tower and traps her. You must rescue Iris using her art as clues to find her before the king and chancellor come for her.

Graphics: The graphics in this game are luxurious and rich. It’s almost like walking into an interactive graphic novel done with a touch of Tim Burton meets the Brothers Grimm style. The game takes on a three dimensional feel as you navigate the tower rooms and as you step into Iris’ paintings. The artwork alone makes this worth looking at. Check out the trailer for a peek.

Sounds: The music is a bit repetitive in some spots, albeit appropriately eerie and spooky. And it does change when inside the artwork. Eventually, I found I tuned it out after a while.

Controls: This is a straight forward point and click game. The controls are easy to use.

Flow: This game had great flow. The developers didn’t mess around. Following an entrancing mini-movie introduction, they put your right into the game or literally on the front doorstep of the tower. The story continues to unfold as you explore each room and discover various hidden objects and puzzles that eventually lead you to Iris.
Initially, there seemed to be a lot of backtracking looking for items, but as you delve further into the game there is less of that. The puzzles get more difficult as the game goes on and there is a variety of puzzle types, cryptograms, sliders, etc. I was never bored with the game or puzzles.
There are a few nice features Big Fish has included in order to avoid player frustration/disruption of flow. If at any point you are lost or stuck on a puzzle you can always click on Franklin. He was Iris’ mentor who has been turned to stone by the curse. He can offer you 3 hints per task if you’re at a loss for what to do next. I found his hints to be a bit vague at times, but sometimes they were helpful.
There is also a “skip the puzzle” button that lets you skip the puzzle if you’re getting too frustrated, BUT it only appears after you put a little effort into trying to solve it, not that I ever used it of course! ;P
And last but not least, there is a walk-through blog posted that does just that—it walks you thru the puzzles’ solutions and where to go next.

Fun Factor: The mysterious dark story interweaves beautifully with the puzzles to make this pure entertainment. Combine that with colorful characters that you interact with along the way makes this a delight to play. The length was perfect for me, but I could see many puzzle/adventure souls wanting the game to go longer.

Female Aspect: Your role is simply identified as the rescuer. You are never identified as male or female and in fact don’t have a body that is seen. I wasn’t bothered by not having a specific identity for this game. The only real female representation in this piece is Iris. Through the game she is established via her friends and drawings as an intelligent, gifted child. There is sort of a damsel in distress quality to her and I was somewhat disappointed with the ending.

***WARNING SPOILER ALERT**** The ending left me hanging. She has a confrontation with the evil king and dark chancellor, and then draws a door in her book and she and her book disappear. I found myself asking, “Where’d she go?” and if she has this power of magical animation, why doesn’t she draw something to imprison the dark chancellor?? One can always hope for a sequel where she uses her magical sketches to fight back and rescue poor Franklin and her parents.

Replay Value: I see myself playing this again but would need to allow some time to forget how to do the puzzles. If given enough time, I can see this being like a good movie you can pop in on a rainy day or just before Halloween to getcha’ in the mood.

Final Thoughts: Big Fish Games has put out a beautiful piece of animation combined with hidden object puzzles for a heckuva deal at $6.99. I think this short adventure-puzzle game is worth playing and I am keeping my fingers crossed for a sequel. I hope it comes soon, just so I can see more of the incredible artwork and watch Iris get her revenge.

Review copy was provided by Big Fish Games and did not affect the outcome of this review.