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It�s funny how a game as simple as Tetris can keep inspiring new games, with new ideas.
Even all these years later. I guess it�s the simplicity that allows Tetris to be so
flexible, and so creatively fruitful. And some of its tastiest fruit to date...are eggs.
Oh, Mother Nature. You...raving lunatic, you.
Egg Mania was released to the Game Boy Advance back in 2002. There was also a console version,
but...as their lineage will tell you, games like this are always best on the go. Egg Mania
is obviously based on that classic Tetris gameplay, but the game pretty much goes creatively
ballistic from there.
It�s like a creativity omelet.
So yes, it�s a puzzle game. Yes, blocks fall from the top. And yeah, you stack them
upward from the bottom. With these walking eggs. Who have to grab them, and slam them
down...to build a stairway to heaven, basically. Next thing you�re going tell me, there�s
a bustle in the hedgerow.
Which makes me wonder.
So unlike Tetris, you don�t control the blocks directly. You actually control the
eggs, instead. And you can only use the blocks if you catch them. So once you do, you can
turn them and twist them however you want and place them...the objective being to reach
the goal before your opponent.
So it�s, like...a puzzle-platformer race, I guess? You have to work fast to beat your
opponent, but there�s a catch. You can�t just build a straight line to the top. If
the tower you�re making becomes unstable, huge pieces of it can just come tumbling down.
So you have to make �full lines,� to use Tetris speak. At least, until you get close
to the goal.
At which point, you can make a haphazard break for it.
But if you can�t reach it? Well, that�s a long way down.
It�s a really clever take on the Tetris idea, and it gets seriously frantic when you�re
playing. Leaving any open spots in a line will cause your tower�s instability level
to rise, so you have to work fast and efficiently. Fortunately, you can fill in those gaps any
time, provided you have the block to fill it. You just drop down, throw it in there...get
a ride back up to the top. Thing is, it comes at the cost of upward progress.
So fixing your mistakes isn�t something to make a habit of.
A valuable life lesson, brought to you by Egg Mania.
There are two main game modes, the primary difference being their difficulty. But the
game also has some extra modes that are variations on the main concept. So there are survival
modes, time trials...even this great bomb mode, which is less a race to the top than
a race to get your opponent to the bottom. And fortunately, Egg Mania also has single-cartridge
multiplayer, which is awesome.
There are obviously a ton of puzzle games that have spawned from the remarkably fruitful
womb of Tetris, but this is one of the most notable ones I�ve played in a while. Egg
Mania manages to be both familiar and innovative, taking gameplay everyone knows and injecting
it plenty of new ideas.
If you�re looking for GBA games, Egg Mania is an eggs-cellent one to track down.
And that�s no yolk.