Publisher: Doctor Entertainment
Developer: Doctor Entertainment
Genre: Puzzle
ESRB rating: Everyone
Release date: Available now

No matter how advanced and sophisticated games get, there will always be a place for the laid-back puzzle game. Sometimes we don’t want to shoot down the bad guys, or wrack our brains to find out how to defeat the impossible boss. Sometimes, late at night, we’re tired and we just want to relax while trying to figure out how to get some…flowers.

Enter Puzzle Dimension, a game developed and published by Swedish studio Doctor Entertainment. The overall aim of the game is simple. Collect flowers and use them to unlock new themes and levels. Sounds easy enough, but the difficulty lies in actually getting to those flowers.

Once you start playing Puzzle Dimension, it seems like a very standard puzzle game that could have come out on the PSOne. I was ready to pull the plug on it and just hand in a scathing review, but being my very patient and calm self, I continued playing—and became addicted. You control a ball with the direction pad and you use the X button to jump. The triangle button allows you to go into a freeview mode, so you can look at the puzzle structure in its entirety. This feature becomes essential as you progress further into the game.

The beauty of Puzzle Dimension is in its variety. As you move through the levels, new obstacles arise and you need to figure out how you’re going to overcome them. Sometimes the platforms might be slippery, meaning that you slide across them, or breakable or even fiery, which means you can only jump off them once. This means you need to think ahead and make good use of specific platforms. But you’re really drawn into Puzzle Dimension when you start navigating the platform in all its three-dimensional glory. You find your mind twisting as you appear to be upside down, then suddenly find yourself right-side up. This requires a lot of thought, with the freeview camera being an essential tool.

My only gripe with the game is its presentation. I understand it’s a small indie-house production, but I still think more work could’ve been done to present it better. It looks too much like a PSOne game. Maybe making the ball look more dynamic, giving it a personality and making the levels appear livelier and richer would’ve helped. I get that the focus of the game is in the construction of puzzles, but as our mothers always tell us, first impressions are everything.

Puzzle Dimension is a game I would definitely recommend. It’s fun, it works well and there are some very mind-bending puzzles that pull you in rather than annoy or frustrate you. All in all, it’s fun, which essentially is what games are meant to be. Oh, and the music becomes strangely addictive.

Our Score:

Our Recommendation: