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Defy

Published by Flavio Bressan da Luz
Price $10.00
Download
Primary Genre Secondary Genre

When people think of a puzzle game, they think of something like Defy. The game requires a lot of thought but the idea is very simple.

The graphics look much better when scaled down for these screenshots. Ah, there it was.

The middle of the screen is an array of seemingly random coloured balls. A pile of multi-coloured jigsaw or tetris like shapes surround the board and these can be shifted around or rotated as needed before placing them exactly over the same colored spaces on the board.

You can drag and arrange pieces around the edge of the board, this is quite nice. You can shift pieces on the board too but there is a big problem in that you can't see what piece is what on the board. The player must pick up a piece and wobble it a bit to work out it's shape. It makes a difficult game more difficult.

The idea is great but the presentation is very poor. There are no game options and no graphical effects. The graphics that are present are extremely basic and there are very few sounds. You get a very much Windows style 'ping' for correctly placing a piece, a buzz for an incorrect one and a snippet of Handel's Messiah for finshing a level. The Hallelujah is appropriate because completing even the easiest of the 30 levels is something to celebrate.

Defy is a good idea but it needs much more work before it could be considered good enough to compete with similar games. Fans of cerebral puzzle games should like this, and the demo is small and doesn't require installation, but the comparison between this and polished games like Arcade Lines is stark.

Graphics 19%
Sound 9%
Playability 85%
Longevity 50%
Overall Score 29%
No Award

Published on 20 Jun 2003
Reviewed by Mark Sheeky

Keywords: defy review, flavio bressan da luz reviews, flavio bressan da luz games, defy scores, pc game reviews, indie game reviews, independent gaming.