Puzzle games have gone through many forms, from the simple Spot a Difference puzzles that every kid plays in magazines to the marginally more complex Match-3 puzzles like Bejeweled. Only a few, such as Lumines or Meteos, really mix in music effectively into puzzles, and even then it's not a key part of the gameplay. Musaic Box aims to change that by making music an absolutely essential element of the gameplay. So much so that the game in intended to be played almost entirely on the music alone. Now that's interesting.

Musaic Box is about searching through a house and uncovering all of the musical secrets contained therein. Using a special box, you must piece the melodies together with a mixture of listening to the audio and figuring out graphical clues. Most games only offer a cursory integration of graphics and audio. Only a rare few actually make both essential to gameplay. Managing to mix the two, and in a puzzle game no less, makes Musaic Box a definite contestor for the Design Excellence award.


Innovation in narrative comes in many forms. In some it comes as an aimless wandering and lack of set goals and motivations. In others, it comes as a quiet ambient force that builds up as the game progresses into something truly to be reckoned with. Night Game definitely falls into this second category. With simple dedication and a cool gameplay concept, Night Game is a great examination of ambience mixed with brain-bending puzzles.

The goal of Night Game is extremely simple: make it to the end of each level by using physics to move your ball along to the exit. Each level is broken up into stages, with environmental elements assisting or hindering the player at every turn. The real design accomplishment in Night Game is not the simple physics gameplay, but the way the environment and style is reflected in every facet of the game. As mentioned, this is an ambient game of the highest caliber. It is a quiet triumph in a sea of loud noises and flashy imagery, and that alone justifies Night Game's inclusion as a finalist in the IGF competition.


Osmos has already been mentioned in a previous article as being a finalist for Technical Excellence, and is also nominated for the Seamus McNally Grand Prize. However, it's also a competitor in the field of design excellence, and for good reason. With a smart mixture of simple controls and engaging gameplay, Osmos is definitely an example of great design. In fact, it has great design almost entirely because of its technical excellence! Talk about crossing the wires in a good way.

Osmos is about shooting around as a mote and collecting things to make yourself bigger. Things such as gravity and momentum play an important role in moving about. However, the player must be careful, as creating thrust in a particulr direction expels mass from the mote. This sort of risk/reward system is one that only a few games, such as Every Extend, explore. Skillful players can boost in a direction, gather motes, swing around a larger object, and continue on their way. Less skilled players can simply move around, filling just enough in their mote to continue. But regardless of skill, if the player isn't careful, they can find themselves without enough to move around. In Osmos, patience is not a virtue, but a necessity, and lining up your shots is absolutely essential. That is why Osmos is in the running for three awards, and why it is sitting happily in the design category.


Yet another music game in the design category! However, Retro/Grade is different than most. While shooters integrated with music games generally revolve around conceptsm such as those showcased in Everyday Shooter, Retro/Grade takes a different approach. By taking a genre staple, reversing it in every way, and adding music to it, Retro/Grade has made a music game with almost no change at all.

Quite simply, a time anomaly is forcing a ship to travel backwards in time after the defeat of an alien armada. In order to prevent a paradox from occuring, the ship must be in all the right spots to absorb its own shots and avoid enemy fire. In other words, it's a shoot-em-up played in true reverse. What is really clever is syncing it to the music, which the game does. Giving players that sort of immediate feedback that totally fits the game in question is a blessing that a lot of developers could learn from.


Kyle Pulver has been featured on Big Download before in the Freeware Friday column. His game Bonesaw is a masterpiece of nostalgia and soul-destroying, mind-shattering difficulty. His work is more than just that, though, and Snapshot is a great example of truly how talented he is and how much he can accomplish when paired with another of like mind. In this case, it's Peter Jones. The game they have made is a strong contender for the title of best design.

Snapshot is a rather simple sidescrolling platformer. Where it brings the design excellence, though, is in the picture-taking mechanic. The protagonist can take pictures of the environment and then moves them around, causing items to change position in efforts to solve many different puzzles. It's a really simple mechanic, but it's really charming and implemented well. Beautiful pixel art, nostalgic music, and this mechanic all combine to form an excellent game.