Chime

Charity begins at home?

Source // Steam

What is Chime? It's a little bit like Tetris, only not really, and it's a little bit like Lumines, but not that either. It's musical, but it isn't, and it's about making shapes with unusual puzzle pieces, sort of.

What I do know is that it's just a tad addicting, so let's find out why.

VVVVVV

So tempted to make this entire post a string of V's...

Looks a little old, VVVVVV, doesn't it? It's meant to, being heavily inspired by Commodore 64 titles like Jet Set Willy. It's almost like the 1001 list has decided to remind us where video games came from, all those decades ago.

How far have we come? We've come all the way from brutally difficult platformers to... brutally difficult platformers built on nostalgia for brutally difficult platformers. Lovely. Well, let's hit 'run' on this one and see how quickly we end up face first in a spike trap.

Max & the Magic Marker

Scribble me this.

Source // Nintendo

Remember Crayon Physics? Would you be more interested in it if that kind of gameplay was found in a platformer, instead of a physics puzzler? Would you want to play more of it if you were guiding a kid through a level, dealing with monsters and trying to catch an escaped cartoon drawing?

If you do, it seems Max & the Magic Marker will be right up your street, because that's pretty much what it is. Crayon Physics crossed with a platformer, and you can already imagine the kind of things you'll get up to.

A Boy and His Blob

How long does this jelly bean fuel you, lil Blob?

Source // PlayStation

A Nintendo might as well be the home of the platformer. Sure, every other console, handheld, and computer under the sun has had platformers, but there's something about those that appear on Nintendo hardware that stands out.

Maybe it's because of Mario standing head and shoulders above the rest. Maybe it's because the generally weaker hardware has pushed developers to work within limitations and direct their creativity and skill towards only two dimensions.

A long time ago, the NES was the home to a small boy and a smaller blob, and two decades later, the Wii provides the platform for the puzzle-platformer A Boy and His Blob to stand out once more.

Grab yourself some jelly beans and put on your thinking caps. You're going to need both.

Cogs

You spin me right round.

Who's ready to feel dumb again? What is this run of games, eh? What chance do I have of getting anywhere into sliding block puzzle Cogs in this state of mind?

Also, what's this LOLspeak option?

Mighty Flip Champs

Flipping hell.

The two-dimensional platformer can already provide a puzzling time for players even before you introduce gimmicks like time distortion or, in the case of Mighty Flip Champs!, multiple overlapping stages, accessible through a quick hop into another dimension, but some players want and seek out these brain-melting games.

Still feeling dumb after failing to make swift progress through Professor Layton and the Diabolical Box, I'm about to tackle a 'simple little platform puzzler' that will inevitably begin to sprawl into something more monstrous in no time at all.

How far do I think I'll get? Not very, but I might surprise myself, right?

Professor Layton and the Diabolical Box

"You haven't figured it out yet, have you?"

The Professor and his cockney assistant Luke have returned at last, with a hundred-odd more brainteasers that all come together to tell us the tale of Pandora's box, though it goes by another name here: Professor Layton and the Diabolical Box - except in regions where it does actually go by Pandora's Box. Hooray for localization!

It was localization into English that took two years for this sequel, but you welcome the efforts, otherwise, you'd be solving everything in Japanese, which would add to the difficulty just a little bit...

Let's get onto this case before the clues all dry up then.

Reflect Missile

a.k.a. Trajectile

Source // Nintendo

We've already had one new take on Breakout in the form of Shatter, but the block-smashing formula can be made into more of a puzzle instead, as demonstrated by DSiWare title Reflect Missile.

Rather than a paddle and ball, you've a launchpad and rockets, and while they can bounce too, you won't really be playing this game with that aspect in mind.

Zen Bound

All tied up.

Source // MobyGames

Keeping your hands busy in a world without fidget spinners can be tricky for someone who wants to do something, but doesn't want to do something too involved. Just idly fiddling with something for no real purpose other than to play, chill out, and pass the time is something I can get behind, depending on the something, I suppose.

In 2009, if you had an iOS device and wanted to chill out in such a way, you might have opted for the wrap 'em up that is Zen Bound, a simple little puzzler where you just wind a piece of string around objects.

That's it, nothing more taxing than that, but you can bet it gets thinker than you would have initially thought.

You, Me and the Cubes

Careful now. Wouldn't want to fall off into the void, would we?

The Nintendo Wii is no stranger to odd games thanks to its motion controls, and neither is Kenji Eno, he of One-Dot Enemies fame not too long ago in this 1001 list.

On the surface, You, Me and the Cubes is a puzzle game about balancing people on cubes hanging out in the void. Underneath that surface, well, things get a little weird.

Trine

Working together to solve a common problem? What a novel idea.

Side-scrolling adventures with ultra-high production values were a rarity in 2009, says the 1001 list as it introduces us to side-scrolling action-platformer physics-puzzler Trine.

I don't know where I picked Trine up, and definitely don't know why Trine 3 is in my Steam library either, because I haven't got a clue what this game is about, and the title isn't spilling any secrets either. It looks like the kind of game you'd only know existed if you were the exact target audience it was aiming for.

If that's the case, I don't think I'm that target audience...

Scribblenauts

Write Anything, Solve Everything.

Source // Nintendo

They always say the pen is mightier than the sword, don't they? How can we best put that to the test? Pen vs Sword fight? Probably not that. What about the Nintendo DS game, Scribblenauts?

Maxwell's a clever chap with an out-of-the-box imagination - or he could have, depending on who is playing - and armed with a notebook that can summon anything into existence to help solve his problems, just like that.

That's quite a powerful pen to wield. I suppose it could even create a sword out of thin air, too. Can a sword do that?

Spider: The Secret of Bryce Manor

The itsy bitsy spider went up the water spout...

Source // MobyGames

A long, long time ago, in the arcades of the early 1980s, was a puzzler by the name of Qix. You had to draw lines to create boxes, sectioning off the screen from the enemies buzzing about and ruining your chances of filling up your level quota. Carve out 75% of the play area and the level is yours. Rinse and repeat as enemies moved faster and there were more of them.

It was addictive, it was tricky, but it was ultimately short lived. But what if it was given a complete makeover? What if it could be thematic, rather than abstract? What if it could have a story, a point to doing it all?

Strictly speaking, Spider: The Secret of Bryce Manor isn't Qix remade, but it's a good place to start thinking about it.

Rolando 2: Quest for the Golden Orchid

Keep rolling, rolling, rolling, rolling.

Source // Apple

The iPhone, iPod Touch, and later iPad did absolute wonders not just for mobile gaming, but for new ways of playing games using accelerometers and touchpads. While you could thoroughly enjoy playing LocoRoco on the PlayStation Portable, nudging shoulder buttons to rotate the planet you're playing on just isn't the same as rotating an entire device to solve a puzzle involving similarly circular childlike blobs in Rolando 2: Quest for the Golden Orchid.

The Kingdom of Rolando has been infected by the Kilgorean Flu, and only the Golden Orchid can save the day. Enter Sir Richard and his skilled underlings, and you, some sort of overlord that manipulates the world around them so that they can platform their way to success.

Have you got what it takes to help Rolando out?

Shatter

Arkanoid + Gravity = Awesome?

Breakout didn't necessarily need another game, but when Arkanoid showed what you could do with the Breakout formula, apparently there was a need for another Pong-like block-smashing arcade game.

Fast forward an awfully long time, and the PlayStation Network is a new home for smaller titles to shine, and what better way to grab some attention than to stand on the shoulders of giants?

One part Breakout/Arkanoid, one part physics playground, Shatter wants to show you how far this gameplay can go.

Henry Hatsworth in the Puzzling Adventure

Good show!

The Nintendo DS has two screens, so players could play two games at once, right? Something going on up top and something else going on down below. I mean, kids these days are smart enough for that, aren't they?

I'm fairly sure such a line of thought wasn't what spurred the development of Henry Hatsworth in the Puzzling Adventure, but that's sort of what's going on, with the thankfully added benefit of pausing between both games, a platformer up top and a puzzler down below.

Henry Hatsworth is on the hunt for a dapper gold suit, but the adventure to get it will be unlike anything you've played before. Tea time's over, gentlemen. Onwards!

Might & Magic: Clash of Heroes

"By the trees! Demons sneaking through our woods unnoticed?"

The Might & Magic series is completely alien to me. I can guess what it's about, of course - fantasy, magic, probably competed with Final Fantasy and Dragon Quest and untold numbers of other RPGs that have far more entries in the series than is sensible, but I've always viewed it as 'cheap', as though it were a store-brand version of those more successful series.

One handheld spinoff, first emerging on the Nintendo DS and then sweeping over to iOS and Android and then consoles and computers, serves as the sole Might & Magic entry on the 1001 list, a puzzle RPG by the name of Might & Magic: Clash of Heroes.

Is this an entry point to the series, or merely an entertaining off-shoot to occupy your hands on a commute?

Crayon Physics Deluxe

This should work. On paper...

Physics. My worst enemy? Probably not. No, of course not. Plastic instruments are my worst enemy from this 1001 list. Physics-based puzzles are a step or two above, sometimes working well for me, sometimes not.

I often have to go back to the drawing board on many occasions when struggling to work out a solution to a physics-based problem. In Crayon Physics Deluxe, everything is that drawing board. Scribble a ramp and you've got a ramp. A makeshift golf club on a pivot point and gravity will swing that sucker in what you hope is a useful manner.

Let's put it to the test, shall we?

Eliss

Play with two hands.

Touch-sensitive devices, usually mobile phones, are one thing, but devices capable of accepting and keeping track of multiple touch inputs are another beast entirely. From point and click to drag and drop, and now pinch to zoom and beyond, the multitouch accessibility of iOS devices, and the explosion of mobile gaming on them, lead to quite a few possibilities for developers to explore.

One man took multitouch and ran with it, creating the graphically stylish puzzler known as Eliss, a game that only a mobile device could allow.

Oh...

Boom Blox Bash Party

Jenga with explosives?

Source // Wikipedia

When Steven Spielberg makes a game, you think Medal of Honor, not Boom Blox Bash Party, but that's where we're at.

There was always going to be a game on the Nintendo Wii about flinging something at wobbly towers and watching everything fall over in a physics sandbox. For many that game was Boom Blox, but refine it a little more and fix what was broken and you get the sequel, Bash Party, the one and only title you need if you want to see some chaos on your Wii.

Don't progress any further unless you're Wiimote has a strap and that strap is around your wrist.