It’s been nearly twenty years since the simple puzzle game Tesserae was released for Nintendo’s original portable handheld, so we thought we would take a look back at this retro piece of software. The game is simple and antiquated but still holds the same challenge as it did all those years ago.
Tesserae was developed by Eurocom and released on both the Nintendo Game Boy and the Sega Game Gear in November of 1993. The game was also released on PC and was published by Gametek.
GAME PLAY:
The game has two modes of play where you can either play one mosaic at a time or enter into a tournament where you must complete multiple mosaics in a row. There are nine different stages to choose from, each with a different shaped layout. The gamer can also choose from three different difficulty levels – beginner, intermediate or advanced. Higher difficulty levels increase the variety of tiles in play, which makes eliminating them more difficult.
In beginner mode you start off with three basic tiles, a circle tile, square tile and a cross tile. Selecting a tile will allow you to ‘jump’ over an adjacent tile. This will eliminate the ‘jumped’ tile. If your tile lands on another tile of the same type, the tiles will merge into one and the gameboard will now have two open spaces. However should the tile landed on be different than the first, the two different tiles will merge to create a new shape.
For instance, if you select a ‘circle’ tile and jump onto a ‘square’ tile, the resulting tile will be a hybrid tile with a circle inside of a square. This tile will also now be locked an unable to be selected to make a move. The only way to unlock this tile is to ‘jump over’ it with another tile, which will remove the original ‘circle’ tile and leave the ‘square’ tile on the space. This technique can be helpful at times, but can make things tricky and should be avoided.
The only way to complete the level is to eliminate all of the tiles except for one.
Tournament mode challenges you to finish all of the levels, though the basic gameplay remains unchanged.
CONTROLS:
The game uses simple point and select controls. The gamer uses the d-pad to highlight a tile and the ‘A’ button to make a selection. The ‘B’ button is used to undo any move. The game is very forgiving and allows the player to undo their moves all the way back to the start. This gives the player a lot of leeway to test strategies without worry.
VIDEO & AUDIO:
The game has a simple melody on the title screen but is absolutely silent during gamepley, aside from the sound of selecting tiles and when they move. The silence adds to the feel of the game and allows the gamer to concentrate and strategize without the distraction of background music.
REPLAY VALUE:
The game has the highly addictive play similar to Sudoku. The gamer must use logic and pre-plan moves in the same vein as players do in Chess. The game therefore needs strategy and makes you want to return again and again.
FINAL THOUGHTS:
This Game Boy game is definitely a good candidate to be released on the 3DS Virtual Console. It’s simple and elegant, while has depth and longevity. The game was actually released as on iOS in 2009 and on Macs in 2011 coinciding with the opening of Apple’s Mac App Store. The original Game Boy and Game Gear cartridges can also be found on eBay and even in Amazon Marketplace, ranging in price from a few dollars to nearly $70 for a new unopened package.
Dust off your old Game Boy and prepare to be addicted to a puzzle gem.
