[Lex Recommends] #1: PS1 Puzzle Games
Hello everyone! My name is Lex (Kingofcrumpets) and I have decided to start a weekly recommendations set of articles. I personally have a soft spot for retro games and I spend more time revisiting old games than playing new releases, so I thought I would put these articles together to help gamers find games they may have missed that they may enjoy. To kickstart this series of articles, 'Lex Recommends', I thought I would start with recommending puzzle games from my favourite console of all time, the Playstation from 1994!
Recommendation #1 - Kula World.
'Kula World' has you take the role of a beach ball... stay with me, I promise this is a great recommendation. The aim of this puzzle game is to navigate across levels to collect keys so you can use level exit doors to progress through the game. The game features gravity altering physics and introduces obstacles such as spikes and lasers, which you must navigate through using moving platforms, jumping pills, teleportation devices and bouncing tiles. You can also collect Pacman-esque fruit on the levels and if you find all 5 you are granted access to bonus levels!
You can even play this game with a friend. The local multiplayer features a time attack mode where players must compete for the best level completion time, or a mode called copycat where each player has to copy the previous players moves. This game was originally released in 1998 and was one of the first games to utilize the Dualshock controller. This game is rather expensive now as physical copies are concidered rare, however you can find it on the Playstation Store for relatively cheap and it's definately worth spending money on.
Recommendation #2 - Devil Dice.
Where do I even begin with this game? 'Devil Dice' is a frustrating dice based puzzle game for the playstation, where you take on the role of a devil. You have to navigate across the dice, rolling them around a grid to create specific values on groups of dice so they start sinking through the board. You can then chain combos into the sinking dice to cause reactions and solve the puzzles.
There are different dice types that cause a multitude of different reactions. You are given a limited amount of turns to clear the entire board of the dice which makes this game rather challenging. The game features multiple modes, and even supports 5 player local if you have access to a multitap (and you have 4 friends). This game started off as a homebrew title but was eventually granted a Playstation release in 1998.
Recommendation #3 – No one can stop Mr. Domino.
I recommended a game where you play as a beach ball earlier so you're probably thinking that it can't get much worse, but it can. In this game you play the role of an anthropomorphic domino! How exciting! In 'No-One Can Stop Mr. Domino', you play through six themed levels such as a casino and an amusement park, running laps of a course, setting up links and combos for you to eventually place your domino's into specific positions so that you can set off a chain of events and score as many points as possible.You have to do this whilst also dodging obstacles that have been left to throw you off.
Your dominos are constantly running laps through the levels and the tracks contain special tiles such as trick tiles and recovery tiles which you need to activate by running through them. You must use them wisely to keep up your stamina gauge so you have enough time to complete everything you need to do on the track to progress. Like the previous two games i recommended in this article, this one was also released in 1998. 1998 appears to be the year of strange puzzle games it seems.