Chuzzle. The name initially reminded me of the beer games I used to play in college, so when I first saw the game I was a bit surprised to learn that Chuzzles were actually a bunch of Tribble-looking fuzzballs that come in different colors and sizes.

However, after playing it for a few hours (which turned into many more hours over the following days) I found that Chuzzles were almost as much fun as those drinking games and had the additional benefit of not giving me a hangover.

Taking a closer look, the Chuzzles are cute little creatures with all kinds of interesting behavior. Ignore them for too long and they will start to take a nap. Move them around again and they wake up. When you tap on a Chuzzle they will look in the direction you tap and make cute little sounds. Keep tapping on a Chuzzle and…well, I don’t want to ruin anything so you’ll just need to try that yourself. All I can say is that the people who created this game have a twisted sense of humor and I like it!

The game consists of four different modes of play:

• Classic - Match the Chuzzles and watch them pop to gain a high score
• Speed Chuzzle - Play against the clock to match Chuzzles until time runs out
• Mind Bender - Solve the Chuzzle puzzles to match the pattern on screen
• Zen Chuzzle - A gentle endless game where you match Chuzzles to earn magical charms.

While the game doesn’t come with any documentation that I could find, it does give you a few tips on how to play when you first start the game and they are enough to get you having fun in no time at all. However, there are also some rewards to be found for those willing to poke around a bit and follow their curiosity.

Classic Chuzzle consists of moving three or more Chuzzles together in a group and watching them “pop”. You move Chuzzles by tapping on one of the little fuzzballs and them sliding them up/down or left/right. This moves the entire row of Chuzzles in the direction you choose. For Trēo owners, you can also use your 5-way control to select and move the Chuzzles around the screen and avoid the styles completely.

A group can consist of three in the same row or column, or any group of three that are touching even if they are in different columns or rows. You get bonus points for groups of more than three Chuzles, as well as for creating multiple groups of three or more Chuzzles in the same move or getting cascading groups popping one after another.

If you are a Bejeweled or Bejeweled 2 fan, this may sound familiar, but the games actually play quite differently because you are moving entire rows of Chuzzles rather than just swapping two jewels around at a time as in Bejeweled. So if you like Bejeweled (as I did), then I think you’ll also like Chuzzle, though it may take a little while to change your game strategy.

If you get stuck, the hint button will show you the next move you can make to create a group of Chuzzles. If you run out of moves, you have two “Scambles” that spin the Chuzzles around like a slot machine and give you a another chance to pop more Chuzzles. If you run out of moves and Scrambles, the game is over.

When a group of Chuzzles pop, their little eyeballs float up and into the beaker on the left side of the screen. When the beaker is full, they eyeballs flow out of the beaker to become new fuzzy Chuzzles once again and you move on to the next level. If it all sounds a bit strange, it is, but it is also quite fun.

Speed Chuzzle is a lot like Classic Chuzzle, but with the addition of a timer. If you take too long to pop a group of Chuzzles, the timer runs out and one of the Chuzzles becomes “locked”. Once a Chuzzle is locked, you can’t move the entire row or column containing that Chuzzle until you find a way to remove it by creating a group that contains the locked Chuzzle and popping it. At the higher levels you have less time before another Chuzzle is locked so you need to keep popping Chuzzles (which rolls back the time) as quickly as you can.

In Mind Bender mode, instead of popping Chuzzles you need to move the Chuzzles around to match the pattern shown on the left side of the screen. There are four patterns per level and when you complete them all you move on to the next level. I’m not sure how many levels there are, but I was able to get to Level 5 but I’m pretty sure there are quite a few more.

If you’ve played all the different modes up to this point, you are probably ready to relax without any time pressure and without any mind bending puzzles, and that’s where Zen Chuzzle comes in handy. It’s a lot like Classic Chuzzle, but you never have to worry about running out of moves (or Scambles). You score gets saved even if you change modes, so you can always continue where you left off last time. Building up a higher and higher score.

In all of the modes, you can get additional bonus points for all sorts of special combinations. You can also earn Trophies (up to 26 I believe) for these accomplishments and these trophies will appear in your Trophy Room under the High Scores screens. You can get trophies for things like making a quadruple combo, playing the game without any hints, and for you obsessive-compulsive players there is a trophy for popping 1,000,000 Chuzzles. And there is a final trophy that is awarded when you earn all of the other trophies. It is these types of things in a game that drive me crazy and keep me playing because there is always something more to accomplish even if you’ve been playing for weeks or months.

Summary

Chuzzle is another fun and addictive game from Astraware. With the four different modes of play, there’s always something to enjoy whether you only have a few minutes or a few hours to play. The Trophies are a nice feature that keep the game fun and provide a sense of accomplishment even if you’ve been playing the game for many hours or days.

Pros:

• A challenging a fun game
• Four different modes of play for constant variety
• Trophies provide fun goals and rewards frequent play
• Allows different user names for different players

Cons:

• Program is a bit large (2,866K or 1,909K without the music file), so you’ll probably want to store it on your SD card unless you have a Trēo 700p.

Tested on a Trēo 700p and Trēo 650.

Related Links

Buy Chuzzle from mytreo.net/store

Browse more Astraware games at mytreo.net/store

Browse more PalmOS games in the mytreo.net downloads area.

Filed under: Software reviews