Tricky Kick

Tricky Kick is a one-player puzzler filled with cute creatures and 120 levels (60 regular levels and 60 hidden levels). If you're a puzzle cart fan, you're already familiar with the "how-tos" of this game-but perhaps we should start with the "whys."

If It Wasn't For Bad Luck, I'd Have No Luck At All

Once upon a time (now there's an original beginning!) in a land called Meril, a young elf named Oberon lived happily among the forest creatures, probably surviving on tree bark and other 'natural' goodies for food. Elves are into that stuff.

One day an evil sorceress named Kymera wandered through Oberon's hometown, er, homeforest. She looked around at all the happy creatures and thought, "What's going on here? Did everyone just hit the lottery?" And since no evil sorceress in good standing with the Bad Witch Guild of Meril could resist spoiling some other creature's good fun, she let fly this cruddy curse.

Now Oberon and all his descenders are doomed to live forevermore in a maze world full of creatures with bad attitudes, unless they find a way to destroy their opponents and escape.

Luckily, Oberon and his brood are blessed with a special power. By kicking any enemy in their path, they can send it sliding away until it's stopped by an obstacle, or another enemy. And if two identical enemies smack together, they vanish.

Creature Punting

Your goal in Tricky Kick is to smash matching creatures together so they disappear, but you better pay attention and plan your moves after every turn. If you get trapped in a corner you're out of luck.

You can begin play with any of six characters, every one in a unique world. Each character must complete 10 levels, but since you get passwords after completing a level you don't have to finish off all 10 before trying another character's world. Polish off 60 levels and you can get 60 more if you figure out the secret password!

A timer keeps you moving along, and you can redo your last move if you make a mistake. At later levels, there are rebound bumpers, secret passageways, and arrows that alter the direction of objects you punt.

Kicky Tricks

Tricky Kick is an extensive and challenging game that's great to take on with an audience. It's one of those carts that's bound to stir up a lot of group participation-everyone has their own strategy. My only knock on this cart is that the text is poorly translated from Japanese. If you're like me, you're probably tiring of game conversions from Japan that still contain awkward translations and diffi-cult-to-pronounce Japanese names.

If you look past the cultural/language problems, Tricky Kick is a kick-and an addictive one at that!

Pick up a copy of IGS's new Puzzle-style game Tricky Kick, and you'll soon discover how and why six little people (Oberon, Udon, Taro, Gonzo, Little Mayu-mi, and Prince Suzuki) in six different places are all having such a rotten day. Here's how it goes. You help each character put together matched pairs of animals and various objects. As the title suggests, the way you put "things" together is via a good swift kick! Finding the proper kicking lane is a bit of a problem, though, as there are obstacles such as logs, trees, and benches that block most every path. And should you maneuver your target too far or boot it in the wrong direction, it'll wind up stuck, for good, and you'll have to start over again. Visualizing your moves is the key to solving the more than 50 brain-crushing puzzles. Prepare yourself fa some hair-tearing frustration, and be careful, this cart's addictive!

This Brain-Teasing Chess-Like Game offers the Puzzle Theme in a Unique Way. There Are Six Different Heroes Trapped in Their Own Mazes. Each One Has Ten Different Levels (For a total of 60 in the Game) and Its Own Storyline. the Object of the Game Is to Rid the Maze of Certain Enemies By Bashing Them Into Extinction. to Clear a Level, You Must Kick Matching Enemies Into Each Other, Which Removes Them From the Playfield.