puzzle

Developer: Jonny Hopkins
Publisher: Johnny Hopkins
Year: 2020
Genre: Puzzle

In the decades since Tetris was released, there have been hundreds of games inspired by it. Not just clones involving falling blocks but also games that use the famous Tetris block pieces for other types of gameplay. Chesstris 2000 is a recent favorite of mine that does just that. The game combines elements of Tetris and Chess to create something new. Players clear levels by navigating a chess piece attached to a Tetris block though a maze of blocks to an exit square on the board. The Tetris inspiration also comes through in the line clearing mechanic where having a row of 8 squares clears that line. Sometimes you’ll need to clear lines to create room on the board but must also be careful to not eliminate your chess piece. I felt that the levels were well designed and slowly ramp up in difficulty.

isometric view of blocks on a chessboard in space, with two chess pieces sitting on the blocks. Tetris blocks floating in the background

I also love how the game sounds and looks. The Itch page cites inspirations like Tetris for Philips CD-i, Tetrisphere, Myst, and educational software, which all contribute to the game’s combination of the vaporwave and utopian scholastic aesthetics that really works for me. If you haven’t seen Tetris for the Philips CD-i before, I highly recommend watching a video of it on YouTube. We’ve had so many rereleases of Tetris games but I’m still waiting for this one. The soundtrack is by Stevia Sphere, using vaporwave music under the Creative Commons license, and fits perfectly with the aesthetic the game is going for.

I really can’t recommend Chesstris 2000 enough if you’re looking for a puzzle game. It’s available as Pay-What-You-Want on Itch and available as both a browser game and download so anyone can play it.

Chesstriss 2000 is available on Itch.io and through the Indiepocalypse anthology.

Developer: Microsoft Game Studios
Publisher: Microsoft Game Studios
Year: 1999
Genre: Puzzle

Lately I’ve been playing Pandora’s Box, a 1999 puzzle game published by Microsoft that was designed by Alexey Pajitnov, the designer of Tetris. It’s really unfortunate that it seems to have been completely forgotten because it’s a really charming collection of puzzles.

screenshot of the puzzle select screen showing New York City's skyline

It’s a pretty straightforward collection of puzzles. There’s technically a plot about you having to recapture some tricksters that have escaped from Pandora’s box, which isn’t really how the story originally worked but whatever, it’s just there to give an excuse to do a variety of relaxing puzzles. The Wikipedia page has a good description of all the puzzle types. Not all of them are winners, the weirdly named Image Hole is a tedious slog where you just have to slowly move holes around until you see the place in a painting where they can fit in, but most of them are good and it’s a fun way to pass the time when I want to play a game to relax. I think the ones that I prefer the most are the ones that are closer to your traditional jigsaw puzzle. Overlap, Jesse’s Strips, and Outer Layer are the highlights for me and all involve you putting pieces together to form either a painting or photo, or in the case of Outer Layer, some sort of 3D artwork. Overlap and Jesse’s Strips have fun twists on the jigsaw puzzle by having pieces that overlap with each other.

a screenshot of the overlap screen, showing a jigsaw puzzle being put together

The game’s very 90s aesthetic and calming soundtrack just make this a really peaceful game for me to play, with the North and South America regions being the highlights in the game’s soundtrack. It’s too bad that Microsoft doesn’t seem to care about any of their old computer games outside of Age of Empires. There’s plenty of games like this, Motocross Madness, and Freelancer that could really use a rerelease but are just kinda stuck as abandonware and forgotten by most people.

Pandora’s Box is no longer available for sale but it has been updated to work for modern computers on the abandonware website The Collection Chamber.

Virtual Moose

Review: Chesstris 2000

Review: Pandora’s Box