Stopple

Reviewed by: DeathDude

Positive Points: Challenging puzzle game
Nifty backgrounds
Thirty three levels

Negative Points: Music is okay
Some puzzles are really tough

Genre: Puzzle

Size: 8398 KB

Requirements: Windows 95, NT4, 98, ME, 2000, XP, Vista
Pentium II 400
64 MB Ram
5 MB Free Hard Drive Space
16 MB or Greater Direct X 7.0 Compatible 3D Graphics Accelerator

Questionable Content: None

Editor rating: 3.7

Homepage: http://www.boiledsweets.com/Stopple/

Download location: http://www.boiledsweets.com/Stopple/

As you look upon your next set of moves, you have to think ahead of what is the best possible way to move your little block, and you would hate it if you make that wrong ill fated move over the edge and all your hopes and dreams being crushed. Well, your hopes and dreams in the puzzle realm at the very least, because of that one move, essentially with Stopple that is what you have to face as you move a little block across many different levels, with numerous challenges that get progressively harder as you advance, some testing the very thinking skills that might frustrate some gamers. However, the satisfaction you get when beating a very hard level, the cool backgrounds that you see during gameplay make an interesting sort of game, but it still would cater more towards hardcore puzzle fans more so than the general puzzle fan.

Stopple is based on Bloxorz, a flash based game created by Damien Clark, and which was allowed by Damien to be made into Stopple as you see here. The objective in Stopple is easy, you have to move a block across a level and guide it into the hole at the end of the stage, you can move the block left, right and down and up, depending on how you see fit. However, as always these levels have no barriers or guard rails or any of that, so you have to be careful as you are moving your block not to send it over the edge. You also have to take into account, other factors in some of the levels from bridges, to teleportation devices; to simply having to navigate as carefully as possible otherwise you will plummet over the edge and to your doom, your doom! Luckily, you can retry as much as possible until you beat the level and should you wish to come back and play again at a later time, there are level codes given in each level, which you can input in the restart tab in the main menu.

With Stopple you will see right away once you start proceeding through the easy sort of beginning levels that the difficulty begins to shoot right up pretty quickly. It almost feels a bit too much, especially considering there are thirty three levels, it could have been spread out a bit further along to at least get gamers who may not have a ton of puzzle experience to see what the game really has to offer, especially with some of the unique ideas of having to pass some levels. Granted, if you really want a challenge with a puzzle game, then Stopple fits the bill quite nicely on the other hand.

What is pretty nifty to see as you are playing through each of the levels is the sort of psychedelic backgrounds going on with the colours and whatnot. Granted this is more of a cosmetic effect to the game as you are playing along, but it looks nice and was something interesting to see, rather than having just a stagnant non changing background as you are playing the game.

With thirty three levels to the game, there is definitely a ton of variety to see, especially once you get to the later levels in the game. With later additions such as being able to split your block, to teleportation, to simply having to open and close bridges, the good thing is that you will be challenging yourself and your mind, trying to think up the solutions of having to get past these factors and make it to the hole at the end of the level.

Other than the high challenge level, which was mentioned earlier, the music in the game is okay. There are two music tracks and personally I did not think they fit that well with the action on screen, it seemed more of an annoyance in this case, but overall it was okay, and if you do not wish to listen to the music you can always turn it off via the options menu.

For puzzle fans looking for a nice challenge that really makes you think, analyze and dissect different routes of guiding a block across a level, then Stopple is the game for you, if you are a casual puzzle fan however, this game might not be for you, but check out Stopple nevertheless and see what it is like.