One of the most charming games on the Nintendo eShop is a little 3DS puzzler called Pushmo that requires players to push and pull large tableaux made of colorful blocks in order to climb all the way to the top. Now Nintendo has announced a sequel to the game that brings in new elements such as floating blocks, switches, and gravity. Yes, blocks no longer just hang in the air for your amusement. Physics are here! Here's Nintendo's description of Crashmo (known as Fallblox in Europe):
Players can embrace the laws of gravity and challenge themselves with a whole new kind of action-puzzle play in this exciting sequel to the critically acclaimed Pushmo. New gravity mechanics and gadgets like floating blocks, doors and move switches await, testing players' skills as they push, pull and slide each puzzle's colorful blocks in order to climb to the top. Just be careful where those blocks are moved—unsupported blocks will come crashing down. Crashmo contains lots of puzzles to test your brains, and enhanced puzzle-creation and -sharing features mean that even when all the puzzles are cleared, the fun never has to stop.
Pushmo was such an unexpected and enjoyable surprise despite the fact that the end levels became too difficult for me to complete. I can't imagine how involved Crashmo will be thanks to the new gravity element. Pushmo was all about thinking in three dimensions with relation to spaces, but Crashmo will require thinking fourth-dimensionally with time as a new consideration. Sure, a block may be in one place now, but where will it fall once an adjacent block is moved? And how will that impact other nearby blocks? I wouldn't be surprised if there are gimmicks in certain levels that play with the gravity element, too, to change which direction is considered up. Yes, I think we're going to have quite the frustrating time with Crashmo. I can't wait to play it and start on the overwhelming feeling of defeat in later levels. Crashmo is due out on November 22, 2012.
