Pullblox: the digested review

Made2Game Pullblox Review Score: 9/10
Formats: 3DS Ware
Format Reviewed: 3DS
Publisher/Developer: Intelligent Systems
Price: £5.40

There are two types of puzzle games. Type one are those in the Tetris and Lumines family of endless high-score focused tests that stimulate reactions and brainpower in equal measure. Then there is type two, those that make you shout 'Eureka!' on a regular basis. These are the sort of puzzlers that present a challenge and let you solve it at your own pace, with progress measured not in an escalating score but in those self gratifying moments that lead to cracking each conundrum.

Pullblox - or 'Pushmo' if you're American - is one of these Eureka puzzlers and while it may start rather simply it soon grows into a sublime example of the genre.

The concept is simple. Each one of the game's 250+ levels presents you with a wall made of square objects and you start at its foot, on the ground, tasked with reaching a marked point high up the wall where a poor Pushblox child is trapped.

To do this you must pull blocks – hence the name – to create steps for your little squidgy character, named Mallo, to jump up. You can pull a block up to three times, assuming you have the footing to do so, and most puzzles revolve around working out which block must be pulled where and when. Later levels confuse matters by adding teleporting ladders and automatic block pulling switches.

Before long you'll be wrapping your head around numerous micro puzzles as you try and deduce just how to climb the gigantic burger, giraffe, Goomba, or Tyrannosaurus currently holding the poor miniature stress ball hostage.

Levels get much bigger than this. Much, much, much, much bigger.

What helps elevate PullBlox above the traditional puzzle-platformer - a gameplay style  most recently seen in bizarre anime adultery sim Catherine – is that you have a pleasant amount of control over your plush sumo-tomato-geisha-thing. Jumping adds a tactile and creative flair to the puzzle-solving that static grid movement simply doesn't offer.

Presentation-wise the game is delicious. The levels and characters all have a sugary sweet visage that you genuinely want to lick - especially after seeing it all bold and plump in 3D - just to find out if it could possibly taste as good as it looks.

Pullblox is simply a delightful game to play, pulling together all the smart design of a fair, taxing puzzler with the presentational joy of Nintendo's finest. The 250+ levels grow in difficulty with a remarkably well-tuned elegance and some stages are guaranteed to bring a smile to your face – then a frown as you get stuck, then a bigger smile on completion – while a rewind feature ensures simple mistakes are easily mulliganed for stress-free gaming.

Plus, watching Mallo's little arms wiggle around as you jump from the taller stages is unbelievably cute, and the rewind means you can giggle at this to your heart's content. Mean? Possibly, but his fearless freefall is just so adorable!

Alongside this 10 hour+ single player mode is an easy to use level creator with finger-snap quick QR code level sharing that means a new challenge is just a Google search away. Suddenly Pullblox's challenge and charm is extended indefinitely.

Pullblox is a cute but challenging gem, a game that will make you feel remarkably intelligent and slap-face stupid at the same time – 'why didn't I see that before!?' is a common reaction to discovering a solution - and one that's both impossible to put down or dislike. Pullblox? Pushmo? Doesn't matter, buy this game.

 

Digested-digested-review: Charming puzzle-platformer that quicky evolves from simple oddity to brain twizzling eureka-moment brilliance. Level creator with QR code sharing makes it shine.

Words by James Bowden (Twitter: @Dalagonash)

Note: The digested review format: Games come in so many sizes, flavours and colours that it’s impossible – not to say a little dull – to review all of them in the same way. iOS, Android and other mobile games, for example, usually feature low prices and simple game mechanics. So for these we don’t want to waste too much of your time: you mostly want to know whether it’s worth the price and move on. So for most of these we offer special ‘digested reviews’, plus a 140 character or less digested-digested review.

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