Pushmo

Well, here's a post I've been putting off for far too long. Pushmo is at the moment the 'killer app' of 3DS DSiWare (3DSiWare? 3DSWare?), but that's more of a knock on the lack of quality downloadable original 3DS games than a major compliment to Pushmo. But Pushmo is very good, a puzzle game that starts out simple and over the course of about 200 puzzles get frustratingly difficult in plenty of creative ways. The gist of it is that you play as a tiny little dude who can pull blocks out of a wall- once, twice, or three units of distance out. You do this to jump on top those pulled out blocks to pull even more blocks out, but you have to be careful- pull out the wrong block and your path may be blocked later on. Smart planning will let you push and pull and jump in the right order to reach the top, where you rescue a bunch of little kids who find themselves lost on top of a wall of blocks. Things start out very simply with one- and two-star rated diffulty puzzles- usually with a one-star you can figure out what to do before you move a single block, and a two-star will sort of 'solve itself' as pulling out the first couple blocks will lead you to a solution. Things get a little tougher for three-star difficulty puzzles, where some experimentation and maybe a restart or two will likely be required. In four star puzzles those restarts are guaranteed, as most four-stars took me at least 10 minutes to figure out. Then on the game's few five-star puzzles, a walkthrough is almost certainly needed- after spending 45+ minutes on one level shaped like a rocket ship, I just wanted it to be over. Things get more complicated in the later levels with the introduction of a few gimmicks- jump on a colored switch to immediately pull out all blocks of that color 3 units out, or climb a ladder into a hole on one end and pop out the other. Still, Pushmo works great as a 'grab and go' kinda game, where most levels can be completed in a minute or two. It's got adorable artwork, just check out the pastels in that image at the top of the post. Tons of levels exist solely for NES nostalgia as the blocks are placed in ways that make them look like sprites from Mario, Zelda, and Metroid. Pushmo's also got a spiritual sequel in Crashmo which apparently looks the same but plays completely different- I've already got that one downloaded, so I'll probably get to that within a few months.