2004 Puzzle Game of the Year

If there is one thing that Indie gaming does better than anyone else, it is the puzzle genre. This years finalists are no different, as they represent a great group of puzzle games. This year's puzzle category again was the most difficult to rate and multiple times we had deadlocked into giving out two number one awards. However, we wanted to finish with just one champion, so eventually we had to break the deadlock, which is somewhat sad because these games are so good!

5th Place - Treasure Fall

Last year Mountain King was in the running for several awards with their very solid shooters from the Demonstar Series. However things have been changing in indie games, and so even the mighty Mountain King has gone to making a puzzle game to try and help move their business forward. If you know anything about Mountain King you immediately will realize that them doing a puzzle game means that the puzzle genre was about to get a cool looking and playing puzzle game.

Treasure Fall actually plays fairly simply, with the goal of the game being to create a row or column of 3 of the same type of icon. The game play is something that you will find elsewhere, but Treasure Fall expands on it with some really cool special pieces and an overall theme that just cannot be beat. The music is fantastic and the fantasy theme will go a long ways towards giving you something fun to play right after you finish getting through your new Lord of the Rings Extended Version Return of the King DVD. For those who have always thought of puzzle games as a lame affair, Treasure Fall may just change your mind.

Our Review:
"If puzzle games are girl games, then Treasure Fall isn't a puzzle game. Or perhaps this is the first puzzle game for guys."

4th Place - Little Soldiers

With fantastic sound effects and music that is very well done the only thing that I think would keep people away from this game are its kid friendly Metal Slug reminiscent graphics and logic intensive game play. If those things actually do keep you from playing this game, then shame on you.

In Little Soldiers you control army men in their attempt to overcome various obstacle puzzles. The boards offer different things that you can obtain, such as pick axes and bullets, which you then use among your forces to try and determine how to move past whatever is keeping you from getting to the door. Developed into this game is quite a bit of ingenuity that makes the puzzles challenging while also being fun. With chain reaction events that make players feel that they have accomplished something cool to go along with an easy to pick up but hard to master game play, Little Soldiers would have been a perfect addition for the PDAs that it was originally created for, but it certainly looses none of its luster or enjoyment on the PC.

Our Review:
None available at this time (check back in the near future)

3rd Place - Plummit

Plummit. Don't spill. Don't drop things in the wrong places. And most of all, don't pull all of your hair out trying to solve "just this one puzzle". Pipe Mania meets Tetris meets The Incredible Machine.

Plummit is actually two games disguised as one. There are two game modes, the action mode - which also supports head to head duels - and the puzzle mode. In the action mode, you need to build a pipeline from the tap to the goal with random blocks that fall down from the sky and can be turned and moved about much like Tetris blocks. After a few seconds, water will start to spew forth from the tap, and you need to make sure that all water is contained in your pipe system at all times. However, instead of being yet another "stack-the-random-blocks" game, Plummit offers interesting challenges in the form of magical objects, mirrors, hover platforms, conveyor belts, and more that you'll need to overcome with skill and a bit of luck. The puzzle mode adds 65 puzzles to the mix that will take you many hours to complete without making you want to give up along the way.

Our Review:
"For a puzzle game, this is as good as it gets. The game manages, through a limited set of simple rules, to create a game world that is rich and infinitely flexible."

2nd Place - CosmoBots

The hardest decision in all of the 2004 awards came between CosmoBots and Revolved. At different times each of them was selected to win the Puzzle game award, and honestly a coin toss between the two games was considered.

For its part CosmoBots is one of the more fun action/puzzle games that has come out in a long time. This game is an update on the premise of Qix, but honestly is much better than that game in many ways. Much like Mountain King, Retro64 has a fantastic ability to take older game concepts and remake them into really cool games that are far superior to the ones that they are based on. CosmoBots is no exception to that rule and it provides a fun game that I hesitate to even call a puzzle game as so much of the game is fast reaction action based. In CosmoBots you try to fill areas of a board by sending out lines in opposite directions from your bot. You can choose to send these lines out either horizontally or vertically. Once you have boxed out an entire section, it fills in. The goal is to fill in a set amount of the board. With 577 levels there is plenty here to keep you playing for a long time. I honestly do believe that CosmoBots will outsell our Puzzle game winner Revolved, due to the polish in this game and its accessibility to multiple audiences. With some wonderfully done space graphics and a ton of fun power-ups, CosmoBots gave a big drop-kick to the puzzle game genre and produces a game that anyone should be able to play and love.

Our Preview:
"For those who missed Qix, Cosmo Bots will be a great game to check out. For those who didn't miss Qix, you won't want to miss Cosmo Bots either."

2004 Puzzle Game of the Year - Revolved

Honestly if we hadn't done the Independent Games Festival preview article in conjunction with DIYgames we probably wouldn't be writing about this game right now. That is because Revolved was just released a couple of days ago, and we wouldn't have had time to play it enough to consider it for this award had we not gotten an advance copy to check out. As it is Revolved is the winner of the Puzzle game of the year award this year, and it is certainly well deserving of that honor.

It's hard to describe exactly what it is that makes Revolved work. What probably makes the game the most enjoyable is the depth of the game play that is involved. Much like CosmoBots, this game focuses a lot on action game play. However, it also harkens back to the Tetris days as there is a definite puzzle theme to the game, and playing well and quickly are both required to advance very far. The basic games revolves around creating a square in which all four sides have the same color fuse. You can move any of the square on the board either clockwise or counterclockwise by just clicking on them with the left or right button on your mouse. The game really gets hopping as you get a little more aware of what you really can do in the game. The open-ended play allows you to do a lot of things, and I found that each time I played this game I realized new things I could do to move my cause forward. I dreamed about this game for days on end, completing fuse boxes over and over in my head, which you can see as a good thing or a bad thing, but one thing isn't in doubt, this game is one of the most addictive puzzle games I've ever played and I've had a hard time getting away from it long enough to write these end of the year awards. It is for that addictiveness that Revolved narrowly beat out the equally worthy CosmoBots to win our 2004 Puzzle Game of the Year Award.

Our Review:
None available at this time (check back in the near future)

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By: Russell Carroll
Posted: Monday December 13, 2004