Puzzle Expedition: The Quest for the Tear of God (Nintendo DS) Review

The last game from MumboJumbo that Cubed3 tested was Samantha Swift and the Hidden Roses of Athena, a hidden object adventure that was full of promise and great ideas, but ultimately was a let-down due to its low difficulty and general lack of longevity. Puzzle Expedition: The Quest for the Tear of God, on the other hand, is a slow-paced action-puzzle affair that is deceptively simple in appearance, yet extremely dastardly under the surface.

Players take control of an young adventurer called Anna, and her trusty guide, Ben, as they attempt to track down Anna's father who went missing during his latest exciting expedition. The idea is to use both characters to create a pathway to the goal located in each stage. Teamwork is essential, with control being switched with a mere tap of the X button and movement via the D-pad, rather than stylus.

When faced with any of the 100 or so levels that developer Top3Line has included, stretched across various locales (Cambodia, Alaska, Egypt, Atlantis and a bonus world), players must find the best way to push blocks around in order for both Ben and Anna to be able to climb up the appropriate ledges and drop down from certain platforms, ultimately reaching the exit without being blocked. After a few levels have been cleared (or skipped, at the expense of one credit token), a small scene appears where the story is fleshed out slightly (there are two endings to uncover, for added longevity, as well).

Stages become increasingly complex as the adventure goes on, with the adventuring duo being faced with more and more intricately crafted mazes, some of which have areas where there are 'one-way' platforms that can only be jumped onto upwards or dropped down onto from above. These are handily marked with directional arrows, yet they are no consolation to how tricky these additions make levels, even very early on in proceedings, and the same goes for stages filled with switches that keep players on their toes at all times.

To avoid frustration, Top3Line has included the grace of infinite retries in iPuzzle Expedition to allow gamers who quickly realise they have trapped Ben and Anna to give the stage another shot. There are also a limited amount of 'skip level' credits to use for those who simply cannot get their head around a level. With so many puzzles to crack, it is also a blessing that there is no enforced time limit, so a leisurely pace can be adopted in order to work through the best possible solution without being under added pressure. For what appears to be a rather low budget affair that has also flown completely under the radar of most online media publications, Puzzle Expedition: The Quest for the Tear of God is in fact great value for money and should be dug out by puzzle aficionados looking for some extra challenge on the DS. With any luck it will eventually emerge from the US and be released in Europe to a much greater fanfare.