Patreon button  Steam curated reviews  Discord button  Facebook button  Twitter button 
3DS | PC | PS4 | PS5 | SWITCH | VITA | XB1 | XSX | All

Puzzle Dimension (Mac) artwork

Puzzle Dimension (Mac) review


"Roll forward, carefully now... get that goodie... this is all according to the plan. Oh dear god, I think I just took a wrong turn there! Quickly, remember what happened the last time you tried this. Do I jump once and then twice to clear the gap or is it once, roll a step, jump again, and then I’m free? Wait, why am I still rolling? Is that ice I’m on? Oh, Christ, it’s a pit coming up. Jump jump aw please jump. Is that a spring or a switch? Spring or a switch? Spring or a... oh, phew, it’s a switch. Okay the goal is there, right in front of me, roll towards it... agh, I forgot about the fire tile!"

Puzzle Dimension operates on a very simple premise with very simple controls. You control a ball, moving it in four directions with the arrow keys, rolling around a precarious environment trying to collect all the goodies before you return to the starting point. You can jump over gaps and obstacles, which is nice because most of the tiles you roll across have been designed with your ball’s death in mind. Mess up even a little bit and you’re going to die.

It seems the goal of the modern puzzle game is to be very demanding in terms of concentration. Here, each puzzle has a very specific solution that requires you to first look at a map and try to conceive of a safe route through it, then fuss around a bit with some trial and error, and finally execute a dexterous master plan without screwing it up. It goes a lot like this...

Roll forward, carefully now... get that goodie... this is all according to the plan. Oh dear god, I think I just took a wrong turn there! Quickly, remember what happened the last time you tried this. Do I jump once and then twice to clear the gap or is it once, roll a step, jump again, and then I’m free? Wait, why am I still rolling? Is that ice I’m on? Oh, Christ, it’s a pit coming up. Jump jump aw please jump. Is that a spring or a switch? Spring or a switch? Spring or a... oh, phew, it’s a switch. Okay the goal is there, right in front of me, roll towards it... agh, I forgot about the fire tile!

If that last paragraph sounded awesome to you, then you’ll love Puzzle Dimension.

Even if puzzle games aren’t your thing, though, you have to give credit to a product well-made. Puzzle Dimension calls to mind the same kind of “mental dexterity under pressure” feel that classics like Lemmings brought to the gaming scene. The mazes here are a “one-true-path” that’s been twisted around in knots and complicated by three-dimensional physics. Your goal is to separate that path from all the twists and zig-zagging turns that are there to lead you to your doom. It’s not the kind of game you sit around and waste hours of your free time on. But it probably is the kind of game you’ll spend hours on at work or during a graduate lecture series.

Yeah, that last line is spoken from experience.

One point of contention is that there is a fair amount of reused tiles with new skins on them. For instance, pitfall traps fall away the second time you go over them, leading to a long drop and usually death. Fire traps also activate the second time you cross over and also lead to a death, albeit a more heated one. But even so, no two levels are the same and many require wildly different ways of thinking about the problem to solve them. A pitfall block may do the same thing, ultimately, as a fire block, but when one is featured as an obstacle in a fast paced stage meant to test your finger dexterity and the other shows up in a multi-storied affair where you have to roll your ball over the correct pitfall to land on the correct platform below, the similarities between tiles becomes moot.

Puzzle games aren’t my favorite thing in the world but even I was able to get sucked into Puzzle Dimension. It’s hard to beat good level design, no matter what the genre is and this is an example of classically good design with enough twists thrown in to feel consistently fresh.



zippdementia's avatar
Freelance review by Jonathan Stark (October 16, 2010)

Zipp has spent most of his life standing in an open field west of a white house, with a boarded front door. There is a small mailbox there. Sometimes he writes reviews and puts them in the mailbox.

More Reviews by Jonathan Stark [+]
Mario Kart 8 (Wii U) artwork
Mario Kart 8 (Wii U)

Mario Kart 8 is fun. It creates a racing experience that is fast-paced and full of adrenaline, while still retaining that classic Mario Kart zaniness. And that’s important, because somewhere in the last few years, the series felt like it was losing its sense of identity.
The Last of Us (PlayStation 3) artwork
The Last of Us (PlayStation 3)

Instead, Joel’s personal motives are called into question. As his protection of Ellie becomes more and more desperate, the astute gamer will not be able to escape wondering whether Joel is trying to replace his own lost family with this little girl—leading her into an unbalanced emotional reliance in the process.
Tomb Raider (PlayStation 3) artwork
Tomb Raider (PlayStation 3)

It’s impressive to see Tomb Raider go from setting up frightening encounters with wolves, to getting your blood pumping right before a shoot out, to giving your trigger-finger a break and making you get cerebral with a puzzle or two.

Feedback

If you enjoyed this Puzzle Dimension review, you're encouraged to discuss it with the author and with other members of the site's community. If you don't already have an HonestGamers account, you can sign up for one in a snap. Thank you for reading!

You must be signed into an HonestGamers user account to leave feedback on this review.

User Help | Contact | Ethics | Sponsor Guide | Links

eXTReMe Tracker
© 1998 - 2024 HonestGamers
None of the material contained within this site may be reproduced in any conceivable fashion without permission from the author(s) of said material. This site is not sponsored or endorsed by Nintendo, Sega, Sony, Microsoft, or any other such party. Opinions expressed on this site do not necessarily represent the opinion of site staff or sponsors. Staff and freelance reviews are typically written based on time spent with a retail review copy or review key for the game that is provided by its publisher.