Burning Monkey Puzzle Lab

By: Kirk Hiner

Genre: Arcade/Puzzle

Format: Shareware

Developer: Freeverse Software

Minimum Requirements: 233 MHz G3, System 8.1, 30 MB RAM, Quicktime 4, Inputsprocket 1.7.2.

Network Feature: Yes

3Dfx Support: No

Retail Price: $19.99

Availability: Out Now

Stop me if I've mentioned this before, but there's a song by Shonen Knife in which Naoko Yamano sings of the days of the week and what she enjoys doing on each day. You know, Monday she watches sumo wrestling, Tuesday her friends come over for a game of Twister...the same basic life most of us lead. I mention this because Naoko apparently spends all of Wednesday playing computer games, her favorite being Jewelbox. Well, Naoko, I hope you happen across this review, because I know your new favorite is going to be Freeverse Software's Burning Monkey Puzzle Lab.

Aside from the excellent strategy game Deathground and their toys such as Virtual Viagra and the legendary Jared, Freeverse is mainly known for card games and their online gaming community, the HMS Freeverse. Now they'll be known as the company that turned happy, friendly Tetris into an antagonistic, sarcastic, and somewhat unhinged jerk.

In short, they've made Tetris much more fun to be around.

The basic gameplay in Burning Monkey Puzzle Lab (BMPL) follows the traditional Tetris theme; blocks fall in varying shapes from the top of a column, and you must spin and align these blocks to strategically place them at the bottom of the column. The longer you play, the faster the blocks fall. Simple, right? Sure, but now imagine playing the game while a friend (or enemy) chucks rocks at you. Now you have a better idea of what BMPL is like. But more on that in a minute...

BMPL has two styles of play. Hex Bonding mode is more like Tetris; you make rows disappear by filling in the entire row. Because of the hexagonal shape of the blocks and the more complex patterns in which they're clustered, even the best Tetris players may find themselves for want of a slow motion feature every now and again.

The second style is Color Reaction. This game is more like Naoko's favorite game, Jewelbox, in that your duty is to align colors so that four or more touch. When they do (in any pattern), all the same-colored blocks that touch disappear and any blocks above them fall to take their place. If the falling blocks again align four or more like colors, they too will disappear for added point value.

Mission Mode effectively combines these two styles into one game. But aside from switching styles, Mission Mode also switches your goals. To start off, for instance, your goal could be simply to clear one row. When this has been accomplished, your goal may change to remove one color. The faster you achieve your assigned goal, the more bonus points you receive.

Throughout all these, special blocks are sometimes inserted into the falling patterns. These blocks perform various functions; some good, some bad. For instance, there are laser blocks that wipe out entire columns or rows and color killers that destroy all blocks on screen that match the color of block it touches. However, there are also bad blocks.

Evil blocks.

Deadly blocks.

The type of blocks you hope never fall into enemy hands, for when they drop--and they will drop, they mess up your game something furious. Viruses, debris, deadweights and others all conspire to pile on the blocks.

But do you know what can mess up your game even worse? Your opponent. That's right, BMPL also comes with a Versus Mode. And this isn't like those Mario Tetris games where two people play alongside each other until one wins. In BMPL you get to "lay the smack down" on the other player. No, really. You actually do smack the other player.

In the color game, for instance, every time you touch together four or more like colors, you send one of the aforementioned bad blocks over to your opponent's column. Send over enough, and you can completely clog up the column so that everything beneath them is untouchable without a special block that can clean them out. There is some strategy to this, too. You can press a button to hoard all of your bad blocks to dump them all on your enemy at one time, and you can also detain your enemy's blocks. You don't want to do this for too long, however, as all of the bad blocks will eventually fall.

The "smack," by the way, comes from the wonderfully colorful animations. As with all Freeverse the games, much of the joy comes from the characters you control. During versus mode, two characters of your choosing are placed between the columns. Sometimes when you send bad blocks to your enemy, your character will smack your opponent. It's not unlike an episode of The Three Stooges, only Larry, Curly, Moe are now more colorful, and they're monkeys, and they're wearing lab coats.

Not to worry, though. For those who may feel that monkeys slapping one another is yet another example of how video game violence inspires our children to become corrupt politicians, I mean juvenile delinquents, BMPL can be played in Zen Mode. In this variation, there is no competition, the normally garish (but in a good way) colors are replaced with soft Earth tones, the pulsating dance beat is replaced with calmer traditional Asian music (music that's actually controlled by the keyboard as you play), and the gameplay never speeds up. The speed at which it starts is the speed at which it ends, and the game can even suggest where you should place the patterns that fall. Play this mode with one of those trickling water fountains behind you and you just may never again want to return to modern civilization.

Well, except to upgrade your computer, as BMPL has oddly steep system requirements. A recommended G3 and 30MB RAM? That seems somewhat heavy, guys, and pretty much rules out my PowerBook 3400c. Too bad, BMPL is a perfect "waiting for the airplane" type of game.

Freeverse Software, as part of Bunch Media (along with Monkey Byte Development, Delta Tao, Green Dragon and A Sharp), are working to increase their radar size and get more products on store shelves. Mac users everywhere will benefit from this because Freeverse titles are perfect for that "Well, I have a shiny new iMac so I think I'll buy one of those birthday card making...hey, what's this? Burning Monkey Puzzle Lab? Ooh, that looks fun. And hey, Spades Deluxe and Euchre too!" type crowd. But do you know what? BMPL is even fun for guys like me who also enjoy hopping online to get fragged relentlessly in Unreal Tournament. I mean, who hasn't played Tetris and thought, "Boy, I'd really like to go online and prove my masculinity by crushing some total stranger with my block-dropping prowess?" Well, BMPL offers multiplayer action through the HMS Freeverse, so have at it.

Hey, I wonder if I could take on Naoko or Atsuko from Shonen Knife. They'd maybe even write a song about it. Heck, I'm seeing a Freeverse Software sponsored North American tour here. Someone get Japan on the phone, I've got some meetings to arrange.

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February 09, 2010