Henry Hatsworth in the Puzzling Adventure

Tealand and the Puzzle Realm collide in a new puzzle-adventure game on EA’s Casual Entertainment label. They collide hard. Maybe you don’t care – but when you see just how colourful and fun Tealand is, you might sit up and take notice. You’ve played games like this before, right? Where everything’s gone wrong and it’s your job to fix it? There’s a possibility you’ve never wanted to fix it this much.

You’re Henry Hatsworth, a gentleman who goes looking for a magic golden suit, scattered apart by an ancient hero after some ancient heroism. Hatsworth is out looking because he doesn’t really believe the legend and, presumably, has nothing else to do. Classic mistake. He finds part of it (a big golden hat, which he wears throughout the game, affording him [you] certain powers) but by doing so upsets the balance of the co-existing worlds of Tealand and the Puzzle Realm.

Dual screen functionality, unique, of course, to the DS is well used in the game, with Hatsworth switching between the screens as you solve problems and battle enemies. On the top will be your world display – sky, grass, platformy goodness – and on the bottom is the Puzzle Realm, where an enemy floats down to after they appear on the top screen. Use the stylus to move the tiles in the Puzzle Realm to vanquish your foes in a style that conjures shades of Meteos and other such DS gems.

The game is packed with levels, and within those levels are stacks of enemies, puzzles and items to collect. It’s easy to lump this game in with a number of such titles for the DS – the DS is a platform that attracts them, obviously, because of the jab-the-stylus interface. But I don’t want to do that with Henry Hatsworth. There’s something about this one that makes me think that it’s going to cause a real splash. Despite the way it looks (see The Bad, above) I think it’s going to be picked up and hacked at by kids and adults alike. And both will probably find themselves losing sleep as they try to advance through the unique landscapes and bosses.

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