If there is one particular brand of game that intrigues me most, then it must most certainly be puzzle games. Gamers themselves are a weird brand of people; where other people may give in, they will pursue a game to the very end, locked in a constant battle of wits with the game, never once daring to relax their concentration. This persistence is more than obvious when it comes to puzzle games, where not only is the game challenging you, but the developer themselves is seemingly mocking you from behind the scenes, laughing at every slip and mistake. And to give in to such ridicule would be unthinkable.

It was with this thought that I settled into my daily ritual of game playing (its hard but I get through it), intending to lock horns with some of my gaming nemeses. However, whilst looking through the lists of games on a couple of sites, I came upon a most distressing realisation. Whilst puzzle games may have that underlying aspect of a battle between man and machine that makes them so exhilarating, few have a simple plot or basic graphics, the majority preferring to place the gamer into what can only be described as a world of eternal discovery. It was with this realisation that I set myself the challenge of finding a puzzle game that had simple graphics and gameplay, but could still make me believe I was fighting in an endless battle of wits with the computer.

And boy, have I found the game. Hidden in the very depths of mousbreaker.com, I found Springy!, perhaps one of the most simple yet addictive flash games I have ever played. I was hooked just by the sight of the main character, and the game itself just solidified this feeling. Where other games require the gamer to fully explore their imagination to come up with an answer to a solution, Springy makes the solution pretty much obvious from the start, and the gamer is only required to work out how they will exact said solution. Now, getting main character A to red ball B may seem like a pretty simple game, and for the first few levels it is, but pretty quickly the game challenges you to come up with more ingenious ways to solve the levels, and getting A to B becomes that much harder.

As you play the game a couple of times you’ll begin to understand how the character bounces and moves, and completing the levels becomes a lot easier, but the later levels are bound to test even the most devoted of fans. The addition of more objects to collect as well as obstacles such as bombs and walls give the later levels more depth, and requires you to think around the obstacles rather than using the most direct route. It is likely that you’ll die pretty quickly for the first few go’s, but stick at it and you’ll reap the rewards.

The graphics for Springy are pretty basic, but like I said at the start, this was what I was looking for. The amount of time you get to complete the first few levels may seem somewhat harsh, and some people may abandon the game because of this, but like I said above, play it a couple of times and completing these levels becomes a lot easier, and trust me, for the later levels you get more time. Once you do get to the later levels, its good for a couple of games, but after that you’ll probably start looking elsewhere, although true die hard fans may want to stick out and see how far they can get, because as far as I know the game has no ending, which can always be a challenge.

Want to play puzzle game but don’t want anything too complex. Springy will satisfy all your needs, and you may even enjoy yourself at the same time.

Play It Here