P8ZZNIC - A PICO-8 Interpretation of the Tile-Matching Classic, Puzznic
A puzzle game to exercise your brain
Get ready to challenge your mind with P8ZZNIC, a PICO-8 tribute to the arcade puzzle classic, Puzznic. Your mission: clear 144 screens by matching tiles adorned with various symbols. Use your cursor to move blocks left or right — when two or more matching tiles meet, they vanish. Earn bonus time by orchestrating clever trick shots that clear four or more tiles at once. But beware — plan your moves carefully, or you might leave behind an unsolvable puzzle!
Each level in P8ZZNIC consists of four screens. After completing a level, you'll return to the level-select screen, and your progress is automatically saved.
Controls
o : select tile. While holding a tile, push left or right to move it.
Hold x : reset the current screen
Notes
Unlike the original arcade game, the clock in P8ZZNIC counts up instead of down. Without the pressure of a time limit, you can focus on solving puzzles without worrying about losing progress. This makes for a more laid-back gaming experience—perfect for thoughtful puzzle-solving. However, for those seeking an extra challenge, you can replay levels to improve your clock time and compete with others by posting your best records in the comments. Pro tip: set up chain reactions for massive bonuses that reduce your clock time!
This is great all around. Puzzles are fun, title screen and everything are really well done. But man oh man does it trigger my motion sickness for some reason! I think it might be the moving brick background on the level select screen, but my head was spinning pretty quickly and I had to stop even though I wanted to keep going!
@2bitchuck I've added an option "Reduce Motion" (in the pause menu) which stops the background from moving - I hope this helps!
I'm afraid the game crashed on me. I had "Reduce Motion" turned on. Don't know if that contributed to the crash, though.
@dredds Thanks for spotting this! I think I've worked out what happened and I have uploaded a new version to fix it.
In the latest version (1.0.2), the cursor cannot move over the bricks. Is that intentional? I'm sure that wasn't the case in earlier versions.
@dredds Yes, that is intended (and was true in earlier versions). You also couldn’t move there in the arcade machine.
@AdamJ Glad you like it. I've been a fan of the work of Tim Follin for a while, and when I found out he did the soundtrack for the Amiga version of this game I couldn't resist covering his instead of the original arcade game's music. I think it turned out pretty well!
I am absolutely stumped on level 8-4, screen 4.
Anyone solved it?
Finally beat it.
Thanks for a great puzzle game. I really enjoyed playing it.
Absolutely amazing. Great music, tiles slide super smooth. Thanks for bringing Puzznic to Pico-8, Andrew! I played ZX Spectrum version back in the day.
I'm very happy I've found this game when I was looking through the latest releases here on lexaloffle to catch something interesting for another episode.
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