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Genre: Arcade/Puzzle

Developer: Sakura Games

Minimum System Requirements: Mac OS X v10.2, 16MB VRAM

Price: $19.95

Demo: 10MB .zip

There seems to be some confusion these days regarding the usage of the term "adventure." When I see a title such as "Mythic Adventure," I'm expecting to slay gryphons, battle sword fighting skeletons, be tested by Zeus and maybe, if I'm lucky, hang out in a bath house with some ladies in togas. None of that in this game, which is more about dragging colored tiles about. Breakout was not an adventure. Tetris was not an adventure. Mythic Adventure is not an adventure. It is, however, one of the more engaging arcade/puzzle games I've played in quite some time.

There's certainly no shortage of variations on this theme. Whether you're aligning blocks or matching colors, the goal remains the same; using a steady stream of objects, attempt to fill up or clear a board before time runs out. I must admit my surprise that this genre has retained such life, but I guess that can be attributed to solid games like Mythic Adventure.

Here's the twist Sakura Games has brought to this formula. The game board comprises a large collection of empty blocks. At the bottom of the screen flows a steady stream of geometric shapes, much like the shapes that fall in Tetris. Your job is to drag these shapes onto the board to an effort to completely fill it up. It sounds simple, of course, but don't they all?

The game board isn't a simple square, so you have to be careful where you place your pieces. Although you can drag to the game board any of the currently available pieces from the river (those you don't use simply fall into oblivion), you'll find that luck plays a major role in your success. Inevitably, only single blocks will remain on the board, and you'll find yourself waiting for them impatiently as the timer continues to tick away.

The developers realized this, too, so they addressed the problem in a couple of ways. Throughout the game period, butterflies flit across the screen. If you manage to click on one, it'll randomly fill a block. You can't click on a butterfly while holding a tile, but you can drop a tile in the drop box if you need to get rid of it quickly or can't find a good match. There is a time penalty for dropping a game tile, however, so it's wise to make your selections carefully.

Also, some of the blocks contain coins. Filling these block earns you the coins, which you can use to buy bonuses to help you on your way (buy more time, fill the screen with butterflies or autofill a randomly selected block).

I mentioned that the shape of the game boards pose a challenge, but there's more. Sometimes, the blocks can only be filled by certain colors. If you thought it was maddening to wait for a single block in the early levels, see how you feel waiting for a single green block. You'll find yourself watching the playing field for butterflies more than you'll be watching the block river, and that's often a strategy that pays handsomely.

Quest Mode in Mythic Adventure contains 25 levels of this action, broken up every five levels by a meeting with a mythical creature. The gods present you with a word challenge in which you have to select letters to try to guess the word (sort of like Wheel of Fortune with a time limit), then its back to the action. I liked these word challenges as a respite to dragging blocks around, but they serve another function as well. If you're stuck on a word (which is likely to happen if you don't have a decent knowledge of mythology), you can buy letters with the coins you've collected. If you've spent all of your coins buying bonuses just to reach this point, all hope is not lost. When you drag a letter onto a block in the word, it'll light up green if you got it right, red if you got it wrong, or blue if the letter is used in the word but is in the wrong place. You have to successfully solve five words to complete the puzzle, but you're given more than enough time to do so, with or without buying letters.

When you're done with the 25 levels, you're not necessarily done with the game. There's a level builder that's quite easy to use, allowing you to create your own game boards. Oddly, Sakura Games doesn't support this feature as well as they should, as there's no online database of user created levels for others to download.

There are a couple other minor issues, as well. The game seemed to have a hard time remembering me as a player, so I'd often have to start playing again on level one after having completed other levels. I also found it odd that the phrase "Press the B key to buy the game now!" appeared on the playing field even after I'd registered the game. And finally, the game window is fixed at 640x480. This is fine if you have a small monitor resolution, but I have a 20" iMac set at 1680x1050, so the game window was tiny, making it difficult to grab the pieces I wanted or click the butterflies. I could switch to full screen mode, but that also sped up the cursor to an uncontrollable speed.

None of these problems are game killers, though. The graphics are attractive, the audio is good (although the music is repetitive), and the gameplay will hold your attention for a while. There's enough in the 10MB demo to let you know if the game is for you, so I recommend giving that a go (.zip file). Mythic Adventure is unique enough to distinguish itself from the myriad arcade/puzzle games that game before it, and it's fun enough to keep you entertained until the next one comes along. Just don't expect a grand adventure.

Download the free demo.