PuzzleJuice iOS Review

PuzzleJuice iOS Review: 100% Vitamin Wee! 

By: Brandon Winfrey

  Can we all just agree that Tetris sucks?  I’m tired of living through the lie that Tetris is still a beacon of interactive enthrallment in our current culture.  It’s not.  It’s boring.  In fact, the last time I wanted to play Tetris I was doped up on painkillers after the forceful removal of my wisdom teeth.  However, the second I loaded up the game I realized that I made a grave mistake.  Power.  Off.  If Tetris’ waning appeal couldn’t even capture a physically and psychologically numbed teenager with nothing to do but watch reruns of “Inside the Actors Studio” – then there is a huge problem.  What’s the problem?  Oh ya – that Tetris sucks.

I’m being harsh on Tetris, but its shortcomings are really no fault of its own.  Tetris grew from a culture that was just learning about speed.  The world was starting to get revved up as far as information transfer goes.  So, for people of the time – Tetris was pretty awesome, fast, and challenging.  In our current world of instantaneous multi-communication, though – it falls flat.  Most people assert that we live in a post-modern culture – one that worships genre mixing and blazing pace.  However, they are wrong.  We live in a hyper-modern culture.  We don’t just want a bunch of media to be thrown at us at all times– we want a massive, congealed version of our culture to be smacking us in the face every second of our existence.  Most of my life right now is spent holding a Kindle in one hand and an iPhone in the other – while I’m playing Skyrim on my PC and shoveling a Lean Cuisine down my throat.  And the crazy thing is – that’s how I want it.  Anything less and I feel like I’m stuck in 2^nd gear during the Indy 500.  It may be unnatural, but it’s the way the world works now.

That’s where PuzzleJuice, a brand new iOS game from the creative minds of Asher Vollmer (Design and Programming), Greg Wohlwend (Art) and Jimmy Hinson (Music), enters the ring.  When I first booted it up – I thought I was playing a pastel splashed Tetris.  Grr.  Is this what I signed up for?  I got my answer within the next millisecond when I tapped a group of three connecting like-colored blocks and a group of letters magically appeared in their place.  Ooo, okay, I am intrigued Mr. Vollmer – go on.  I then learned that I had to create a three letter or longer word in order to eliminate the blocks.  Meanwhile, there is still a barrage of shapes closing in on my letter-fest.  And hold the phone there are power-ups, too?  Now this is my kind of Tetris.

As you can probably tell from my description, PuzzleJuice is fast and chaotic – but never overwhelmingly so.  The screen is filled with objectives that are endlessly hurled at you.  You have to manage the blocks, match the colors, activate the letters, and treasure hunt for complex words all at the same time.  There is literally no time for hesitation.  You might be thinking: “Sir Brandon of Winfrey, this seems awesome, but isn’t it overwhelming, m’ lord?”  At first, yes, it is a tad bit to take in.  However, after a few games my hyper-modern attention span kicked in.  I was able to continually get better and better every time I played.  Not only do you learn the assaulting rhythm and management of the game over time, but the color scheme and art of the game help you focus and understand what the screen is communicating.  For instance, the neon pastel colors of the blocks are instantly differentiable from the black and white letters.  The result is that you can literally analyze two different gameplay mechanics at the same time.  While you are starting at black and white letters trying to find a word worth more points that “SKI” – your eye can also register the color of the blocks that are falling down because they pop off the screen in such a visceral way.  Therefore, you can accomplish two tasks at once.  And that is how something as demanding as PuzzleJuice is able to still be accessible.  It’s a beautifully thought out design.

I would be doing a disservice if I didn’t mention how polished the game is.  It was made by just a few people, but its presentation rivals many large studios.  Clever writing, energizing menus and wealth of extra features (Zen Mode, Twitter integration) come together to deliver a mobile game that out packages 90% of the market.  And that’s not me being generous either – that’s me being factual.  I do have one minor gripe, however.  While playing on the iPhone version sometimes I struggled with the game understanding exactly what I wanted to do.  You see – you tap the screen to change the direction of the falling blocks and you swipe the screen to form a letter.  Most of the time – all was well and good.  Sometimes, though, it would rotate the blocks instead of forming a word.  In a game that relies on speed and skill, this was pretty detrimental to my score.  However, this fault was few and far between and 99% percent of my playing time went swimmingly.  A puddle of gripe in a sea of praise.

So, should you buy PuzzleJuice from the App Store.  Short answer: Yes.  Long answer: Yeeeeeeeeeeeesh.  The game has the word Juice in its title for a reason.  At its basic level it is a blend of other games – mixed together to form a hearty and wonderful treat.  But on a deeper level, it’s a game that shows where our culture is today.  We like to have everything at the same time.  We like to juggle an army of media.  We like to work in a constant overloaded state.  If we could squeeze out every aspect our lives into a bottle, shake it up, slap an ExistenceJuice label on it and lap up every drop – we would.  And that’s the basis behind PuzzleJuice.  It’s giving us a mini-manageable slice of the chaotic world we willingly participate in.  And that’s the reason it works so well in today’s culture.  And that’s the reason it’s a must-play for everyone.

Bye-bye, Tetris.  You’re a few generations behind.

PuzzleJuice is available now. Check out http://puzzlejuice.asherv.com/ for more info.

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