Remember those days when Atlus was a name that you’d typically expect to hear in conjunction with some obscure Japanese game? “Atlus, those guys that make Shin Megami Tensai?” They seem to have been grabbing up every title that they can get their hands on this year. The results have been mixed. Some of those games have been good and some have been pretty awful; regardless, it is good to see the company stretch its publishing wings a bit. One of the markets that Atlus has been completely absent from thus far is the digital market, but that has changed with the release of the puzzler Droplitz.

Droplitz? Yeah, I know. It sounds like something you should talk to your doctor about, not a puzzle game involving dropping balls (the droplets, or “droplitz” if you speak extreme). Alright, so you have droplets, and they need to get to the drains at the bottom of the screen. I think you can take a stab at the premise of the game. Yep, you have to rotate the blocks on screen until the pipes form a path from source to sink. All the while, your limited drop supply trickles down. If you run out, it’s game over, but forming successful circuits replenished your supplies.

All of that imagery about pipes, drops, and drains is pretty and all, but it is pure conjecture. Droplitz’s graphics follow a pretty abstract template. There isn’t much variation. You get three basic color templates to choose from, and occasionally the field will change colors while you play. Simple, but it works. It’s a puzzle game. You need to concentrate, and the graphics need to be simple and clean. Otherwise, it would just be a mess.

The gameplay modes are similarly barebones. You have three choices at the main menu - normal, hardcore, and infinite. Normal and hardcore are pretty self-explanatory. You hold out as long as possible and try to top your previous high score. Infinite mode is more of a practice option. You can’t actually fail, but your scores don’t get saved.

Droplitz won’t win any awards for originality, but damn if it isn’t addictive. I have to work to keep myself from diving into a game at the office. Droplitz doesn’t have a ton of content or a variety of game modes. It’s simple, but so were the great arcade games that it reminds me of. Droplitz works simply because it follows the principles that define good puzzlers - an easy-to-grasp set of rules, attractive graphics that aren’t distracting, and a steady but fair difficulty curve. The puzzle market is ridiculously oversaturated right now, it’s hard to wade through the crap. Droplitz is definitely worth a look if you need a new puzzle game for the road.

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