Puzznic


Puzznic is a tile-matching puzzle arcade game developed and produced by Taito in 1989 and was ported to the Nintendo Entertainment System, Game Boy, PC Engine, Sharp X68000, Commodore Amiga, Atari ST, Amstrad CPC, Commodore 64, MS-DOS, and ZX Spectrum between 1990 and 1991. Home computer ports were handled by Ocean Software; the 2003 PlayStation port was handled by Altron. The arcade and FM Towns versions show a naked woman at the end of the level; this is removed in the home ports. The Apple IIGS version was cancelled after Taito America shut down.
Puzznic bears strong graphical and some gameplay similarities to Taito's own Flipull/Plotting.

Reception

In Japan, Game Machine listed Puzznic on their December 1, 1989 issue as being the fourth most-successful table arcade unit of the year.
The game was ranked the 34th best game of all time by Amiga Power.

Legacy

Many clones share the same basic gameplay of Puzznic but have added extra features over the years: Puzztrix on the web and on PC, Addled and Germinal on the iPhone, Puzzled on mobile phones. A clone for the PC, Brix, was released by Epic MegaGames in 1992. For Android devices, a clone called PuzzMagic! appeared in 2015. An iPhone clone also available with the title Gem Panic. Blockbusterz Hard Puzzle Game for iOS appeared in 2019.