Chouffy

Title: Chouffy
Author: Zoglu Productions
License: Freeware
Website: http://zoglu.hostarea.org/

I found Chouffy while scanning through the puzzle games at Caiman Free Games. It is a simple puzzler. The goal is to get all the little red guys to the exit (yellow circle) while avoiding the purple baddies. You also have to make sure that none of the bad guys gets to the exit first.


Each character heads straight until it hits a wall. If it is a dead end, it turns around. If it is a corner, it turns. If both directions are available, it turns right. You can override these rules by placing the green arrows on the board.

Both the red and purple characters will follow those arrows. Your job is to place the arrows so that the red guys make it to the exit. On most levels, you also have use some of the arrows to direct the bad purple guys out of the way. However, the arrows are a scarce resource, choose wisely.

The mechanics are pretty simple, click to place arrows. Once you are ready, hit the space bar and watch. Hold down the space bar to speed things up. If you see things are not going your way, right click to stop the action and return to editing.

The biggest flaw with Chouffy is that the red and purple characters move at different speeds. Most levels cannot be solved with thinking alone. You have to try something, run it, see where things are wrong, change things a little, repeat. It is not very satisfying.

There are only 30 levels. The level design is uninspired, but I still enjoyed working through them. At any time, only the next three levels are available. So, you can skip one or two hard ones. If you really get stuck, the solutions to all of the levels are available on the Caiman page for Chouffy.

One trick is that you can use an arrow to turn guys into a wall. They will then "turn right" upon hitting the wall. In effect, they will turn around. This is quite useful.

Chouffy is similar to my Puzzle Bunnies. I know that I am biased, but ... the puzzles in Puzzle Bunnies are better, much better. I will grant that Chouffy has better graphics and audio. Still puzzle games are about the puzzles.