BoxyMoxy (Broken Bytes) Free (Digital) / 35.00 GBP (Cart)
Game title: BoxyMoxy
Game description: Following on from his success with Fix-It-Felix Jnr, L’abbaye des Morts and a collection of ports of Atari 2600 Activision titles, Antonio Savona has teamed up with Lobo and Aldo Chiummo to provide us with BoxyMoxy, his first original IP title since Planet Golf 64 The backstory to BoxyMoxy is that a Wizard has cast the wrong spell, resulting in noisy skulls invading the King’s Kingdom. Naturally, the King is not pleased about this and as a result has thrown the Wizard into the dungeon. Well apparently the Wizard’s two cats, Boxy and Moxy, are the only ones who can get rid of these skulls and by doing so free the Wizard from captivity. BoxyMoxy is essentially a slide puzzle game where you must manoeuvre the cats around in order to clear each level of skulls. Both cats can only move in either horizontal or vertical straight lines until they hit and object. The pink cat, Boxy, cannot destroy skulls and as such has to be used to help aid Moxy, the blue cat, get into positions in which he can smash the skulls. Under its initial release, there are three game worlds available within BoxyMoxy – the Forest, the Village and the Castle with each world consisting of 20 levels. However, a subsequent v1.1 release has added in an additional world, themed around a space station. Starting off in the forest, controls are quite simple. Click the joystick button swaps the character you control. The panel box in the bottom right corner lets you know which cat is currently active. Push the joystick in the direction you want the active cat to move in and switch characters as needed until all skulls are gone, in which you are awarded a number of stars. Each screen has a designated number of moves. If you collect all the skulls within the designated number of moves then you are awarded three stars. If you end up taking either 1 or 2 more moves than required then you get two stars and taking 3 or more required moves will result in 1 star. There is no way to fail a level and get no stars but in order to unlock the other levels you must have collected the pre-requisite number of stars. If you feel the need to restart a level, simply hold down the joystick button until a menu option appears and select restart. The game saves your progress automatically allowing you to try and complete it across multiple gaming sessions. The main game is completed when all three original game worlds are unlocked and all 60 of the original levels have been solved. Completing the main game, gives you access to the additional Space Station world if you have version 1.1.
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Graphics - 80%
80%
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Sound - 65%
65%
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Fun - 75%
75%
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Depth - 70%
70%
Summary
Graphically, BoxyMoxy is quite pleasing to the eyes with its bright vibrant game environments and detailed sprite characters and your cat characters smoothly zip around the screen without any response delays. While the bouncy soundtrack used in the Forest section is quite cheerful the remainder of the music can grate very quickly, especially the ‘Irish jig’ inspired tune of the Village levels that at times hurts your ears with its high pitch notes.
Puzzle wise, it is a mixed bag. While they are intuitive to solve, making it very easy to get into, the puzzles do not evolve to introduce any new elements to the puzzles as you progress through the worlds and you cannot not help but feel like you are just doing the same puzzles over and over again, albeit in a different layout configuration. Further, any sense of difficulty progression feels disjointed mid way through the second world and the persistent player will find that the third world puzzles feel easier than many of the levels in the previous worlds.
BoxyMoxy is a refreshing title for the C64 that is very well produced and has its own charm but is ultimately let down by the limited design with its puzzle elements that prevents it from being considered a great game.
Overall
73%User Review
( votes)Pros
- Bright vibrant graphics
- Easy to pick up and play
Cons
- Puzzle designs are limited – no sense of progression
- Inconsistent music quality
Video Link Included
