The Crate Maze

Intro

"The Crate Maze" was a puzzle game being developed by bob_esc using RPG Maker 2000. As you can probably guess this puzzle game places a heavy emphasis on manipulating blocks in various ways in order to advance, but does include a few other puzzle elements to work with as well. Unfortunately the game is a bit broken in it's current state. In fact, if it wasn't for bob_esc allowing the player to skip or even select levels by choice then getting past level 7 would be impossible, but I suppose I should cover the story before I start talking about the bugs.

Story

You play as Urda, a night clerk, for a shipping giant who manages to get lost in the numerous subbasements connected to one of the stock rooms. So now your going to need to push, smash, burn, and jump your way back to the exit if you want to live. After all, you can only go without food for so long in this basement. Though maybe some of the numerous boxes we smash in a bid to escape contain Pop-Tarts.

Gameplay

This game definitely tries to change things up by including various types of crates. You have your standard brown crate that the player is meant to smash with a pickaxe. On the plus side you can use the pickaxe multiple times, but every time you advance or choose a different level you'll need to collect a new pickaxe since apparently pickaxes are chained to the area you got them from.

You'll also encounter green boxes that you can burn away, but you can only care one flame at a time. And that's assuming you've picked up the levels torch in order to pick up the flames in the first place.

You'll also encounter light blue boxes that will slide across the floor. This effectively turns the stage into a giant ice puzzle since you need to be careful to not get the ice crate stuck in a corner. And you'll use ice crates for a few purposes in this game. The most obvious is pressing buttons but you can also throw ice blocks into lava in order to cause the lava to rapidly cool and turn to rocks you can walk on.

You'll also need to press buttons in order to raise and lower columns as well as collect keys to open locks. You can even collect a feather so you can jump over small gaps. And the game includes a few additional items and puzzle types as well, but the important thing is that some of the levels will require you to think a bit outside the box in order to find the correct solution. So while the game only includes 15 levels. You will probably get stumped at some point while trying to beat this game.

Unsolvable Puzzle

On level 14 the game features one of those path puzzles where you need to hit every square while avoiding coming into contact with a square you've previously touched. And while I gave it the good old college try I could never hit all of the squares. I'd always come up one or more squares short while trying to find the solution. I suppose I could just be missing something, but I think bob_esc placed one of the rocks in the puzzle in the incorrect spot. Which is why the puzzle is impossible to solve.



But if someone can solve this bad boy then feel free to leave a comment telling me what I'm doing wrong.

Bugs

On level 7 the spot you need to hit with the ice create doesn't interact with the crate correctly.



Oddly enough you can still walk into the lava the ice crate went over and die. So it's not like that point is passable by the player by regular means.

And level 12 is only beatable because there are a few objects in the level that you can walk through that should be impassable. At least they would normally be impassable.



Jeez, the other blue blocks in this stage are impassable to my knowledge. So why you can walk through that one blue block is beyond me. And the ability to simply phase through one of the columns is also bizarre.

Graphics

Graphically the game is alright for the most part. At least for what kind of game this is, but at least one of the levels includes a beginner trap that's a byproduct of some destroyable blocks covering up the fact that the tile you need to reach in order to advance to the next level and the blocks you need to blow up are separated by a cliff ledge. So if you start destroying boxes at the wrong spot you won't be able to reach the tile to send you to the next stage.

Sound

Outside of sound effects and the title screen the game essentially loops the same song over and over and over again. So listening to this game can get kind of annoying after a while. And I'm not sure the song selection for the main game really fits with a game that's about carefully planning out your moves in order to advance to the next level.

Conclusion

"The Crate Maze" is a mixed bag for me. On one hand the game features a few puzzles that required me to find creative ways to use my tools in order to win. On the other hand, a few of the puzzles are seemingly unbeatable either because the puzzle itself is impossible or because some of the tools in this game don't always work as they should. And both of these issues should have been caught during playtesting in my opinion. At the same time you can get past the levels that are unbeatable in this game by simply choosing to skip to the next level. So these issues aren't as game breaking as they could have been. Even so my feelings about this game are so mixed I'm not sure if I should ultimately recommend for or against this game.