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P
.: By:
Shaun Beane :: Device
used: iPAQ
H3630 :: January 17, 2002 :.
Everybody has spare time that they can kill
playing games on their Pocket PC. Some games are great for those times when you
only have five minutes. P is a
strategy/puzzle game in which you recover gems by moving objects in a certain
direction and order.
My first gripe with P is the
installation. Don't get me wrong, installing the game is the easy part. It's the
fact that you have to install PocketC as
well, and to run the game you'll need to load
PocketC first, then run P.
I know it doesn't take much, but to me, if you are going to charge for a game,
you should be able to set it up to automate the loading.
PocketC does not automatically install
when you install P. You do get
a short message during the installation informing you that in order to run
P, you must first install
PocketC.
Once you do have everything installed, you'll need to load
PocketC first. If you have ever used a
program written in PocketC, then you are
probably used to how it works. PocketC
will list all of the programs loaded on your device that it can run. To run
P, simply double tap on it.
[Editor's note: Alternatively, there will be an icon for the game in the
Programs\Games folder on your device.]
P took about five seconds to load on my
iPAQ
with nothing else running in the background. The opening screen has a pretty
basic background, like a wall paper, with a big letter
P to the left of the main
menu. The main menu consists of: Play, Info, Settings, and Help. Settings allows
you to toggle the sound, music, shading, animations and alerts.
The only music you'll here is at the main menu and while you are selecting a
level. The sound effects are also pretty basic, but affective. You'll hear sound
effects when Mr. P pops a bubble, pushes ice into the water, and, when he
finally gets the gems, he'll let out a giggle.
You are Mr. P - a cute little penguin, whose sole purpose is to retrieve gems
which have been hidden or trapped behind locked doors. You'll have different
objects on each level to help you accomplish this goal. Help, on the main menu,
describes these different objects, some moveable (blocks, ice, etc.), some
unmoveable (doors, toxic plants, walls, etc.). Moving Mr. P is simple; just tap
on the screen where you want him to go. The help page also gives you a hint on
how to move objects. Put Mr. P next to the object you want to move, then press
your stylus on top of the object. If Mr. P is sitting to the left of an object,
when you press the stylus on the object, the object will be moved to the right.
To give you an idea of how the game works,
I'll give a walk through of the first level - a very simple level. Level one
only has one gem to retrieve and it is trapped behind some water. One block of
ice is available for Mr. P to use. If you move Mr. P to the left of the block of
ice, then tap on the block of ice, the ice will be moved into the water,
allowing Mr. P to walk on the ice to get to the gems.
Some levels are very simple. With others you'll find that you'll need to play it
a couple of times to figure out the exact order of movements. If you move even
one object to the wrong place, it could ruin your chance of finishing that
level, without having to restart. Some of the more difficult levels will take
quite a while to figure out - at least they did for me.
The variety in the different levels is what really kept me playing. It wasn't
just the same thing over and over again. Each level threw up its own surprises
and sometimes difficult solutions. A free level editor is now available (for
information on how to get hold of a copy, see the
P homepage), so I see a lot of
flexibility with this game.
The one thing I can't figure out is why there
isn't a scoring system. Once you have completed a level, you simply choose the
next level. The levels are sorted within 5 different zones. Each zone has 10
levels. You must complete all 10 levels in zone 1 to move onto zone 2. However,
you can play the 10 levels in any order you choose. I've finished the first two
zones and have moved onto zone 3. I assume once I've finished all 5 zones,
that's it. This isn't necessarily a bad thing, since there are enough levels to
keep me busy for quite a while and once I've completed them, I can always go
back and play any level I want again. With 50 levels, you probably won't
remember the solution to each one. This ensures that there is a little bit of
replayability to this game once you've completed all the levels.
P is one of those games you'll
find yourself playing when you only have a few minutes to spare. It's not
something you have to play for hours to figure out. Each level is its own game.
Maybe a scoring system based on the time it takes to solve the level would make
the game a little more exciting. The lack of scoring is disappointing. Overall,
though, I really enjoyed this game. After getting over the annoying
PocketC dependence, I became quite
addicted.
Pros:
Cons:
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PocketGamer.org score: |
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.: Game category:
Puzzle Games :: Reviews
Index :.
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