The name Tower Bloxx Deluxe gives no clue as to how cute, simple, and strangely wonderful this 3D puzzle game is. You live in a city of Tower Toons, cartoon people who love tall apartments and skyscrapers. The problem is, most buildings in the city are old and falling apart, and Toons are leaving fast. The mayor has asked you to build new “pre-fabricated” towers to keep people from moving out.

To build a tower, all you need to do is stack blocks on top of each other. Using a swinging crane, you left-click your mouse to drop a building block onto the ground. The crane refills and you drop the second block on top of the first, and so on. Blocks are cubes of roughly the same size, and once you stack enough blocks, your tower is complete and you can place it in your city.

Sounds simple? It is, but the challenge lies in keeping your blocks balanced. As you build, both your crane and tower will sway precariously from side to side. Towers range from simple 7-block-high residences to whopping 40-block skyscrapers, and the game is in 3D, so you need to align your blocks just right. (Think of it as playing Uno Stacko with cartoon physics.) But you don’t need to be a physics whiz or have a steady hand to master this game. Blocks will stick to each other most of the time, and there’s no danger of your stack crumbling to the ground. Plus, there’s no time limit in Story Mode, so you can take your time to align your blocks just right. Once you get the hang of it, your perfect timing will earn you rewards such as combos, better tower parts, achievements, and (your ultimate goal) more residents moving in.

To keep the game from getting tiresome, there is a secondary challenge: planning your city. Once you finish a tower, you place it on a blank grid in your city district. Some towers can only be placed beside particular “neighbors” – for instance, a green office tower can only be placed beside blue and red residential towers. This is where the puzzle part of Tower Bloxx Deluxe comes in, but it’s not very difficult to learn either, as you can always build a tower on top of an old one if you made a mistake.

The game’s graphics are extremely cute, from Tower Toons falling out of the sky Mary Poppins-style to a simple but cartoony user interface. Even the music is happy and unobtrusive. Everything in the game is well put together, and with three additional game modes and unlockable tower upgrades, there is just enough for you to do. (Try the Quick Game mode to build an unlimited tower that can go straight up into space!)

All in all, Tower Bloxx Deluxe is executed extremely well, creating a simple, fun, and rewarding experience without frustrating you or tiring you out. Exactly what a casual game should be.

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(8 votes, average: 4.5 out of 5)

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