Swistakowy Klopot

Title: Swistakowy Klopot
Author: Projekt 7
License: Freeware
Website: http://www.projekt7.xt.pl/

As best I can tell, a swistak is a small mammal and "klopot" is Polish for "hard case". Put together, Swistakowy Klopot is a fun platform puzzle game. The goal is to get swistak to the exit. Being a small mammal, the swistak can only step up one step at a time and cannot swim. Luckily, each levels comes with some boxes which you can pick up, move around, and drop. Using the boxes, you can form staircases to climb. You can also use boxes to fill in water.

In the later levels, some additional game elements are introduced. There are teleporters. These allow swistak, and a box if he/she is carrying one, to teleport to another part of the board. There are also gates blocking the way on some levels. To open the gate, a box must be dropped on the key pad.



Before I go on, I should tell about the bad, and there is a lot of it. Swistakowy Klopot uses a fixed screen size. You have to complete the levels sequentially. There are passwords to remember or write down. The controls are little clunky. To turn around without moving, hold down the shift key while hitting an arrow. There is no documentation. The background music cannot be turned off. The background graphics, while well done, can be distracting and cannot be turned off. When exiting the program, there is a splash screen for the software development tool click team. Despite all of this, I still liked Swistakowy Klopot.

Now for the good. The rules are simple. There are 41 levels which are well done and well paced. They are not too hard, but a couple made me think. The hardest levels for me were the ones around level 10. I was still learning what is possible by stacking boxes. What I like the most about the game is the depth of the puzzles given the simplicity of the rules.

There are a couple of subtle points in the rules. In order to pick up a box, the space above you must be free. Also, in order to step up while carrying a box, there need to be two free spaces above. You will get the hang of it very quickly.

Their website does not seem to be working. You can download the game from Caiman Free Games. A similar game is Mailroom Madness. It contains the same box moving mechanics.