14 February, 2009 | 11 Comments

A Puzzlix preview

The first game to come out of “Fornax Studios”, a game for the Xbox 360, released as part of their community games program.
It is the standard slider puszzle game, you slide parts of a picture around till you complete the picture. The level of difficulty within this game consists of how many squares the picture is split up into.

The game play is pretty basic, tho there was no need to convolult it past what was needed. There is no animation for the sliding sections, tho it is not missed.

The controls consist of a button to show a preview of the completed picture, a button to place numbers on the tiles to show you where they should be placed.

Music is consistent across all the puzzles, there is no variance.

The pictures are varied enough and the entire game displays well at 1080p.

There is a multiplayer feature where you and up to 3 friends can compete to see who can solve the puzzle in the least ammount of time.

The addictive quality of this game will depend on the persons liking of the good ol’slider puzzle, tho I can see it doing well on the 360 arcade.

Along side well most of the rest of the xbox 360 community games, Puzzlix is extremly well polished. It is slightly let down by the lack of varience in the audio side.

Wuup will continue to keep an eye on this game and any future Fornax releases.

If all goes well Puzzlix will be released on the community games section on the 360 in the near future.

For more information on Fornax Studios and Puzzlix can be found here

Wuuptastic :P



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Author:Alan Hamlyn

-- Alan Hamlyn Founder of Wuup
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  • http://www.bigtallbill.co.uk Bill Nunney

    Kinda looks boring tbh :P not even any fancy animations! i could make it in flash in a few weeks…

  • http://www.fornax-studios.com/ Fornax Studios

    A few weeks? Puzzlix was made in under two weeks. It is more a quick attempt to get our name out there rather than an indication of the style of games we plan to make.

  • http://www.wuup.co.uk Alan Hamlyn

    What is the style of game you plan to make?

  • http://www.bigtallbill.co.uk Bill Nunney

    Maybe you should have spent more time making it look good. Another 2 weeks making it look good wouldn’t be too much of a stretch?

  • http://www.wuup.co.uk Elderan

    Not everything needs flashy graphics Mr bill.

  • http://www.wuup.co.uk Alan Hamlyn

    No I’ll be the voice of reason. Elderan, ‘Not everything needs flashy graphics’ – well I’m sure if we looked at some market research data for what people want, then we would see if you are right or if bill is right. Now if I was to go with my opinion. I would base it on that on other surveys, people buy things based on appearance, no matter what it is. Thus flash graphics and a polished finish to this product would have been better. However if I was releasing something to get me ‘recognised’ – I wouldn’t release a half-arsed 2 week product (thats nothing to boast about).

  • http://www.fornax-studios.com/ Fornax Studios

    It was felt that making amazingly flash graphics for such a simple style of game would be overkill and that it wouldn’t add anything to gameplay. I have always played games based upon gameplay and not graphics. Admittedly if the graphics are glitchy then I wouldn’t be happy but gameplay is generally more important than flashy graphics in my opinion. And being our first completed game, constructive criticism may be a little more helpful than unhelpful remarks from people who care about nothing but something looking flashy. I understand now why people buy things like the Fireplace ‘game’ available on Xbox LIVE Community Games: because they look flashy, not because they have good gameplay.

  • http://www.wuup.co.uk Elderan

    There’s some situations mr bugsy, where the quality of the game is not offset by the lack of graphical brilliance.

    Psyconaughts is a prime example, when it was released it was far from being the technical showcases of the day, even Halo 1 looks better then it, but it doesn’t stop it from being a game of pure genius and insanity. Spending extra time on making it look better would of been wasted.

    From a marketing standpoint visuals are a key factor, but from playing games for a long while, what you see is not always what you get. I remember seeing crysis for the first time, and thinking “wow that looks amazing, i wonder what they skimped on to make it look that good”.

  • http://www.wuup.co.uk Alan Hamlyn

    Lots of nice points you make there, when it comes to business, people care about selling things mot making quality products anymore… which is sad.

  • http://www.bigtallbill.co.uk Bill Nunney

    I realise not everything needs flashy graphics and cool animations, i was only saying that it would be a plus and make the game less boring. I don’t agree with most of Alan’s points. I really hope you do go on to make better games! the world needs more indie developers! You can have good gameplay and good graphics.

    I’ll be watching for your next game.