Puzzle School

Puzzle School App for iPhone
     This is a 'sort of' virtual dating simulation game paired with a puzzle game.  You choose one of three girls to woo and do your best at the puzzles to afford gifts for the girl of your virtual dreams.
     First let me say "don't get your hopes up".  Yes, this is a dating simulation,  No, there are no sexy unlockable images.  In fact there really aren't any interesting things to unlock.
     There are 3 female characters to choose from.  You can go back and forth between each of them.  You don't need to choose one and play the game until you complete it.
     Each girl is supposed to represent a different personality type.  However they usually speak in the same dialog and don't really show much in the way of personality at all.  They do audibly speak at times, however. The text is in English but the audio is in Japanese.
     When you choose your character she will give you a task to complete in the puzzle game.  If you complete this task, you will receive points.  These points are used to buy gifts for your girl (Because apparently the best way to get a girl is to give her tons of gifts).  If you fail to complete the task you will lose points.  So be careful.
     She will usually ask you to get a 2 combo, a 3 combo, a certain amount of lines, or a score of 300, 400 or 500.  The tasks are usually pretty easy.  If you forget what you are supposed to do, the task is listed under the girl in the puzzle window.
     The puzzle itself is a 3 or more colour balls in a row touching.  you switch two balls either up and down or left and right.  If that switch doesn't make a match, you can't switch them.  The issue I have is that when new balls drop down, they don't make new matches.  Only balls already on the screen make matches.  This can be a pain in the neck when your task is getting combos.
     When you have obtained 100, 300 or 500 points, you can choose a gift to give your girl.  The more expensive the gift, the higher love value it could give you.  The more love she has, the higher her heart points (See the heart on the character screen?  That's how much she loves you).  When she gets to 100, you win.
     This would be simple enough as is... However... She can dislike the gift you give her.  After getting a lot of complaints about my gifts from the 3 girls, I tried tracking which gifts they didn't like.  Did certain girls dislike certain gifts?  Did certain items have a higher probability to be disliked?... No... It just seemed pretty random.  So when you buy a girl a gift she might like it or she might hate it.  If she likes it, you get love points.  If she dislikes it, you are subtracted love points.  This can be frustrating.  Fortunately they can't subtract your points below 0.  Otherwise I'd have been in negative love many times.
     When you do obtain full love your girl will smile and give you a line that's sometimes difficult to understand (The English is a bit rough in this game).  You get a victory jungle and a Stage Clear heart appears.  Then the love score resets to zero.
     It makes it feel like you went through a lot of effort for nothing.  In the end if you aren't playing this game solely for the puzzles, you probably wont enjoy the game.  And with the puzzles being a bit wonky, I'm not sure you should be playing for the puzzles.
     I like the concept of the game.  The art is good.  Very well drawn.  I think the puzzles could use a bit extra coding to make the drop down balls work into the puzzle better.  The audio is nice.  The game play is... so-so.  The translation could use work.  The ending really needs work.  There needs to be something you're working toward.  Just a "the end" really doesn't do it for me.  Maybe a little story line or a photo of your girl and you going on a date... Something...  It just needs to have something that gives you more of a feeling of accomplishment at the end of the game.
Rating: 2.5/5

• Free
• Category: Games
• Updated: Feb 09, 2012
• Version: 1.9
• Size: 17.2 MB
• Languages: English, Japanese
• Seller: Keisuke Naito
• © all right by kesuke

Rated 4+