Black Hole
by Terry Cavanagh
Another puzzling program from Terry of Dark Legends!
| The concept is a simple one: collect all the tiles and reach the red tile before your time runs out; however, there are a few hiccups along the way, in the form of deceptively difficult puzzles. | |
| You basically move your pod and try to drop all of the tiles on the board before hitting the exit. If you linger too long to think, the tile will fall beneath you, and you will have to try again. What makes this more complicated is that certain paths will lead t dead ends, and certain tiles have to be treated in a special way. For instance, the green tiles take two steps to fall as opposed to one for the blue tiles. The different tiles make it complicated enough, but the three difficulty levels each have 10 puzzles to go through. Once you get through those though, there is always the possibility of making your own Custom levels. I found this game mostly well done. I didn't like how the program just ended when you lost all of your lives. It made it annoying to have to restart the program each time in Windows, and at the command prompt, having to type in the name of the program each time would be a real chore. And with the number of puzzles, there is no continue option. This is annoying when you finally get to the fourth level, and have to start over because you can't figure out the fifth level. So instead of concentrating on the fifth level, you must go through the first four first and then try again. The menu system is well designed, and the help system was perfect. |
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| There are only so many tiles in this game, and they are mostly separated by distinguishable colors. The pod is easy to spot, and the black background fits the title nicely since you can imagine you are falling into a black hole, although it is not really mentioned that this is the case anywhere. It would have been nicer to maybe see a large background with some kind of indication of what the setting should be. While there are no animations, the gameplay more than makes up for that. | |
| The only problem I have is with myself here. I hate how I finally figure out what to do, and then I accidentally go one step too far and fall off. Besides that, I found this game's controls to be basic enough to get into the game without any complications. It is very easy to play in terms of moving around. | |
| Beautiful music is in this game. Though taken from Final Fantasy games, the music serves to set the mood for a tense game. As you play through, the music just makes you feel a little more nervous, sort of like if you were diffusing a bomb. Once you beat a level, the music changes to a cheerful victory song before you start the next level. There are no sound effects, but the music is superbly done. | |
| Challenging. Very. Even the easy levels, once you get further into it, get difficult. See, the easy levels usually have more than one solution to them, so you can always accidentally find out how to beat the level. The hard levels are designed more ingeniously, so you have to deal with the possibility that there is only one way through. One wrong step, and you won't be able to complete the level. If you are looking for some brain teasers, this game is it. | |
| I had a little fun with this game, although once the challenge increased I found it more frustrating to play since the program simply ends once you lose. You get a number of lives, but after that, instead of being brought back to the menu, it is over. It really offered no incentive for me to keep playing. It is a small touch like inconveniencing the player that can ruin a good game. | |
| This game is quite challenging and well done for the most part. While the graphics are not really advanced, they do their job. It sounds great, and the gameplay is involving, until you lose. Then you are jolted back to the reality that it is just a program on your computer. I would suggest this game to those of you who are patient and quick minded. | |
| .zip file: 361KB download |