Producer: Incentive
Memory Required: 48K
Retail Price: £6.95
Language: Machine code
Author:

A year and a half ago Incentive brought out one of the most original of maze games called Splat!. This new one is also pretty original in concept, although there are one or two near relations as precedents, like the arcade game with trains, Microsphere's Train Game and, less in style but more in concept, Activision's Zenji.

The story behind the game is that having located the Confuzion bomb factory, your mission is to destroy every bomb in the place. These bombs lie along the edge of the 'assembly room ', and in the centre there are moveable pallets lying around covered in bits of fuze wire. The bombs are destroyed by guiding a spark along the fuze wire until it reaches a bomb. Like those old fashioned plastic hand games where you slid the squares about by using the one free space, in Confuzion you must move the pallets by sliding them into the one or two free spaces available. In doing this the route of the fuze wire is drastically altered. The trick is to move them in such a way that eventually the spark can reach all the bombs one after another.

To make life more difficult on each screen you have a time limit imposed by the length of time the spark will burn. On top of that there is the fact that if you let the spark run into a dead end or to the edge of the assembly room floor, it will lose some of its energy, thus shortening the burn time. But this isn't all - the sprinkler system also releases droplets of water which will run along the bits of fuze wire and should spark and drop meet, you will just get a damp squib. The game has 64 levels - 8 sections on 8 floors, and the player is allowed access to any of the first six sections. After every eighth level there is a bonus screen and after every four levels completed you are given a bonus spark.

COMMENTS

Control keys: user definable, four directions needed
Joystick:
Keyboard play: responsive, directions may be reversed to suit player's orientation preference
Use of colour: very good
Graphics: although essentially simple, chunky, fast and smooth
Sound: above average
Skill levels: progressive difficulty
Lives: 6
Screens: 64

I love puzzling games, in fact I'd go as far as to say that I thrive on them. But this one is, shall I say it, confusing. Presumably this is what its meant to be anyway. On the early levels everything seems pretty straightforward, but as you progress it rapidly becomes extremely difficult and frustrating, confusing to play. By the time you reach the stupid figures level of play, like level 4, everything comes seemingly against you and impossible, but then again, most people like something to go for - I do. Whatever happens on level 64, I just dare not think about! A game for the arcade/intellectual - a thoughtful and playable game

Confuzion is the sort of game which gives frustration a good name. There's something very compelling about it - it looks so simple, yet turns out to be so difficult that it just gets to you after a short while - you get very mad with yourself. Graphically it looks attractive, although there isn't anything exceptionally exciting about them, but they are brightly coloured and move extremely fast - the revolving bombs are very neat. I suspect that people are either going to love or hate Confuzion, but you certainly won't be indifferent to it, and if you do like this sort of game then l think you'll find it exceptionally addictive.

This has something in common with Activision's Zenji in as much as you have to 'feel' your way to the solution. The spark moves about fast enough to keep you constantly on the hop and stop you from thinking. I could understand some people not liking it, or finding it too difficult and not exciting enough to keep their interest, but for me this isn't the case. I think Confuzion will become a classic of its type - the puzzle/arcade game, and as such it is playable, though very hard, a certainly addictive.

Ross: Haven't we been here before? This puzzle-type game's very similar to Zenji by Activision and will appeal to much the same people. The game's built up of fuses, bombs and sparks and the idea is simply to arrange the fuses so that they lead the sparks to the bombs. Explosive stuff, eh? Well, not quite. The fuses are split into curved sections so they can be rotated through 90 degrees and joined in a multitude of ways. To make life trickier you've only a limited time to complete each grid.

The number of bombs you have to blow up and the complexity of their fuses range from the 'possible to the close your eyes and hope for the best'. The controls are a synch and you can use the joystick to highlight a large portion of the fuse-ways - the fire button then rotates that bit.

The difficulties begin when you attempt to usefully direct the constantly moving spark. By luck rather than judgement, I managed to clear a few screens. Nevertheless, you will develop a feel for the game and I don't doubt that with some thought you could work out a perfect system. The graphics and sound are reasonable so if you fancy blowing cobwebs from some of those dormant brain cells check it out. But don't expect the big bang. 2/5 HIT

Roger: Read the name and then agree that yes it is, isn't it! 2/5 MISS

Dave: I do have rather a soft spot for puzzles and this one isn't at ail bad. It'd be nice if you could slow it down a touch though - my brain just can't keep up - and I don't want any sarky Ed's comments. (As if! Ed). 3/5 MISS

Publisher: Incentive
Price: £6.95
Memory: 48K
Joystick: Kempston, Sinclair, Cursor

Sheer mental agony is the basic consequence of an hour playing Confuzion, the latest from Incentive. Deceptively simple, it will have you grinding your teeth and foaming at the mouth in minutes.

There is a tenuous plot to do with defusing bombs before they explode, but that is simply a peg on which to hang an unusual abstract maze game.

You have to control a fuzzy ball which moves around a maze of interlocking lines and attempt to knock out the bombs at the edges before your time runs out. Rather than move the ball itself, you slide blocks of the maze about, creating new pathways, rather in the style of those slide puzzles where you have to make words or rearrange numbers.

There are 64 mazes in all to negotiate, and although the first few are easy enough, the introduction of enemy balls, extra bombs, and holes in the maze plan soon turn the play into a frenzied nightmare. The time limit is tight, but the faster you play the less chance you have of working out a logical plan in advance.

The presentation is pleasant, with thick lines for the mazes and good, solid sound effects. But the strength of the game is entirely due to the novel strategies and techniques you must develop to win.

Conventional wisdom demands that games should have strong themes and plots to succeed. It would be a pity if the abstract nature of Confuzion were held against it, as it generates more thrills and addiction than plenty of well-hyped intergalactic epics. 'Fun for all the family' as they say - give it a try and bend your brain to bits.

MACHINE: Spectrum/Amstrad/CBM 64/BBC/Electron
SUPPLIER: Incentive
PRICE: £6.95

The only confusing thing about Incentive's latest release is why it's not in the top ten yet! This fast moving puzzle game will have you hooked as soon as you start playing.

Remember those plastic puzzle squares you used to get in Christmas crackers? The ones where you have to shuffle squares around to make a picture or word? Well Confuzion is a bit like that. Except you have shuffle squares around to make a pathway for a spark which is itching to get to an unexploded bomb spinning away at the edge of a square - which looks a bit like a circuit board.

Once you've made the correct connections with your shuffling squares, the spark reaches the bomb and detonates it. Then it's on to another puzzle square - bigger with more bombs. Later squares feature added hazards to your fuse, including a drop of water which chases you around attempting to put out your fire!

I played the Amstrad and Spectrum versions and both were totally addictive.

So when you're next looking for a game to spend your cash on, don't be confused by the huge choice which confronts you at your local store - go for Confuzion!

PRICE: £6.95

Like Locomotion, which is also reviewed in Softspot this month, Confuzion takes up the theme of the sliding puzzle in which blocks are slid into order by way of a space on the board.

The aim in Confuzion is to lay a fuse from the bouncing spark to bombs placed around the board. This must be done before the fuse at the bottom of the screen burns out; and it burns faster whenever you make a mistake.

The fuse patterns are complicated, and there are two pieces of fuse to each block, making it difficult to visualise how the board will look when certain blocks have been moved.

The puzzle is easy on the early levels, with a long time limit and only one bomb. By the end of the game though, you will be struggling with short time limits, multiple bombs, holes in the board and moving obstacles.

Confuzion does have many points in common with Locomotion and it is likely that players will prefer whichever they play first. Confuzion is more frustrating, Locomotion is cheaper. Confuzion offers a wider variety of screens but consequently appears more bitty than Locomotion.

Confuzion is produced for the 48K Spectrum by Incentive Software, 54 London Street, Reading.

Incentive
£6.95

This is the most annoyingly addictive game we tried in this batch of programs! OK, so it doesn't have state of the art graphics, speech, prizes, or any other worthy selling point, but it deserves a place in the charts for its sheer ingenuity and compulsive playability. I dare not load it in because it means the end of any work for a few hours.

The idea on which it is based is a very old one, the sliding block puzzle, the twist is the movement within the block and the all too short time in which to find a solution. You have a grid of blocks, the number and shape depends on the skill level, in which is a track along which a spark constantly travels. By moving the blocks to create new track paths you have to guide the spark to the confuzion bombs at the sides of the screen before they explode.

On some of the 64 screens there is also the added hazard of water drops traveling along the tracks, contact means loss of a spark. A wide variety of options and a well balanced playing level makes it easy to start playing and difficult to stop.

In print it may not sound particularly interesting, but I urge you to try it for yourself at your nearest dealer.