However, even though a bit scared and ready to run away as soon as things got too dirty, I liked the experience. And I kept on playing, and playing and playing, cleaning room after room, making my processor and RAM happy. Probably. However, that’s not the point.
The point is that I’m talking about The Magic Toy Chest here, a puzzler developed by Graduate Games, an indie title that is awesomely surprising and entertaining despite the first impression it gives: that of a regular “physics-based puzzler” in which the physics is as real as my knowledge about the latest gadget NASA is working on.
Feeling slightly like The Incredible Machine, The Magic Toy Chest gives you the setting, the “route” and the “vehicles” as well as the missing puzzle pieces and some pretty solid physics to get toy A to chest B while getting over obstacles C, D, E and so on. You will have to use teddy bears and baseball bats to catapult puzzle pieces into the toy chest while making sure that the rocket is ready to offer your bowling ball the necessary speed to get over the yellow truck and give the dog a nudge and push it into the toy chest as well. You will do your best to finish the game as soon as possible (and that doesn’t mean “too soon,” though) and then you’ll start over, knowing what you’re dealing with, but trying to beat your records, trying to see if there’s another way of solving your puzzle. There usually is, since you will generally have more toys than needed, even though at first you feel that you need much more.
It does have a few problems, like items that don’t always go where they should and get stuck in strange positions, but these happen rarely and will never get frustrating. The music is not the best there is and you will have to manually change it before the same tunes drive you crazy (you can’t lower the volume, though) and the visuals are clearly no eye candies, but all these don’t matter that much in The Magic Toy Chest since this is a game you play for the puzzles and not the beats or the looks.
Although I am not a fan of physics-based puzzles because I generally lose interest doing (or trying to do) the same thing over and over again, I really enjoyed The Magic Toy Chest since it’s not boring, it’s quite intense and it doesn’t try to reach for the stars introducing god-knows-what fancy features that totally suck. No, it’s a pretty straightforward puzzler that will keep you going, will keep you entertained and it might even turn you into an addict. Probably your real life room will actually get dirtier since you’ll spend your time playing, but that’s not a problem, is it?
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