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Hi, my name's Stuart and let me congratulate you on reading this splendid review of the latest puzzler from Demonware. It features lots of cute young girls who are always forgetting their clothes. One of whom - Kiki - introduces the instruction manual so dear readers, let's open the manual, boot the game and begin!

Once again your lovely quest involves manipulating tiles. The screen is divided into two halves, the aim of the game is to get the left side to exactly match the fixed right side. But for once you don't have to move tiles around - instead the tiles, or gems, must have their colours changed.

You do this by placing a cursor on a gem and pressing Fire. This gem is instantly devalued by two, and those immediately above, below and to either side of it are devalued by one. Thoughtfully, at the centre of the screen all the gems are shown in order of their value. If a gem is devalued below the lowest value, yellow, then it is destroyed.

Although gems can't be improved in value, you can undo your previous move. But to stop things getting too easy, there's a countdown timer and a strict limit on the number of moves. If you exceed either you lose a life and start again on a new screen - you can also commit suicide to get a new screen to play on.

There are 400 levels split into 26 mines, each with sixteen screens. You don't have to complete sixteen screens to finish a mine; instead a random selection is offered by the computer. When you complete a mine you get a picture of the whole mine network allowing you to choose which of the next two mines you want to attempt. And then as a bonus there's a pic of Kiki or one of her equally exhibitionist friends. But there's nothing to offend Mrs Whitehouse, it's just a bit of cutesy fun which provides a much needed distraction from the brain-exploding puzzles!

Is Gem'X really that tough though? Not initially, the first levels are very easy and you can often get by with instinctive moves. However, as you progress it does become a real brain-twister. The basic of the game remain the same throughout but it never seems repetitive because of some fiendishly varied puzzles, different routes and the random selection of screens.

Overall Gem'X is a surprisingly fun game, the brash, colourful puzzle graphics work really well and gameplay demonstrates good design as screens continually surprise with many 'impossible' screens becoming very simple once you work out the right trick.

There are a lot of puzzlers out at the moment, but this one deserves to do well.

There's something that tells me this used to be a perfectly innocent puzzle game until someone added some pics of Japanese girls enjoying bubble baths, playing with rabbits, etc - not that I'm complaining, mind!

They may well boost sales but it's the puzzle mechanics that keep you playing; for this one you need a *really* logical mind! At times it did my brain in, but I love it to bits!

The sense of achievement is terrific when you conquer a fiendish-looking level with only a few gem changes. I also really like the varied route through, so move over Puzznic and watch out Atomino, the Gem girlies are my puzzle favourites.

You'll be playing for ages before you get to see everything Kiki has to offer (so to speak!).

Presentation 81%
No passwords and a multi-load for each mine, but control panel is well laid out and interlevel cutesy pics add much needed humour.

Graphics 80%
Bright, colourful and detailed - excellent for a puzzle game.

Sound 76%
A choice of a nice, subtle tune of spot FX. Good title tune.

Hookability 88%
Simple concepts and cutesy pics make for a compelling start.

Lastability 80%
400 screens, various routes and high score potential mean there's plenty of challenge. Promise of a 'big surprise' at the end!

Overall 85%
Good, clean cotton-tailed fun!