Review Date: June 30, 2010
Developer: Doctor Entertainment
Publisher: Doctor Entertainment
Platform: PC & Mac
Genre: Puzzle
Like all great puzzle games, the basic premise of Puzzle Dimension is easy to understand but difficult to master. You control a marble and the goal is to collect all of the flowers in the level before making your way out the exit. Of course, it's never as simple as that. Over the course of the game you'll have to deal with increasingly complicated stages filled with all sorts of obstacles. It's addictive, challenging, and everything a puzzle game should be.
Roll The Ball
You control the marble using the keyboard, moving it around with the arrow keys, jumping with the space bar, and shifting the camera around with the shift key. The controls take some getting used to, and until you're fully accustomed expect the occasional accidental fall to your death. They grow on you, however, and it won't be too long before you're deftly swinging the camera around and making complicated jump combinations.
Each stage is made up of a series of tiles, which you'll move across one at a time. You'll stay stuck to the tiles so you don't have to worry much about gravity, though you can fall off the edge if you move too far or fail to land a jump. Each stage will feature a number of flowers, and in order to complete it you'll have to find all of the flowers before you can access to the exit.
When you first start out there are two types of tiles: regular ones and ones that will crumble once you roll over them. But as you progress the game slowly introduces new types of tiles, each with different characteristics. You'll come across teleporters that will quickly transport you across the stage, icy tiles that will cause you to slide, switches that will add and remove tiles, fire pits, and more.
Jumping Fire Pits, Sliding Across Ice
The real magic happens when the game combines these various elements in its incredibly well designed stages. When you start each stage the camera pans around, showing you where everything is so you can plan out just how you'll tackle it. Puzzle Dimension is a game that rewards careful planning, though chances are you'll have to try most stages at least a couple of times before you figure out just how to beat it. Sometimes it can be difficult to wrap your head around the complicated 3D stages, but when it finally clicks and you figure out the solution, it's incredibly satisfying.
The game is set up in such a way that you have a bit of flexibility when it comes to what order you play through the levels in. You unlock new levels based on the number of flowers you've collected, and at no point do you have to have beaten every level to unlock new stages to play. This allows you to skip over particularly difficult stages and come back to them later.
While puzzle games aren't necessarily well known for their superb production values, it needs to be said that Puzzle Dimension looks incredible. Even on the lowest settings the 3D visuals are stunning, and they even change as you play. At the beginning of each stage everything is pixelated and retro looking, but as you come into contact with the level the flowers and tiles spring to life, revealing a beautifully detailed graphical style. You can even unlock additional visual themes as you progress.
The Bottom Line
It's really hard to ask for a more engaging puzzle game than Puzzle Dimension. The game is constantly throwing new and interesting gameplay mechanics at you, features brilliantly designed stages, gorgeous visuals, and a difficulty level that is always challenging, yet rarely frustrating. And aside from the sometimes unwieldy controls, there's very little for puzzle game fans to complain about. This is a game that will steal away far too much of your time.