Previous Next

My prowess with puzzle games is legendary. The number of swaggering letters that arrived after Mental Block appeared on the cover tape, claiming that the game was so easy even a badger could complete it was, oooh, quite large indeed. But I defy anyone to shout me down on Mindtrap. It's blimmin' tricky. The first thing is, it's got nine hundred and ninety-nine thousand, nine hundred and ninety-nine levels. (Oh, go on! Ed) No. it's true. It really has. (Blimey, eh? Ed) The second is, although the idea is to rearrange mixed-up dice so they're in nice neat coloured rows, you can only manipulate 'frames' of four dice at a time. This means that, inevitably, you twiddle the vital cube off into the ether before you realise what's going on, then spend the next twenty minutes mucking everything up to get the blessed die back again. What fun.

Actually, it is quite good fun. but incredibly frustrating. The time limit is very generous, but the different levels have a habit of restricting your moment with loads of invisible walls. Bah. Also, the gameplay's very limited - just move the cubes. No extra features are added until Level Thirty, when another layer of dice pops up.

The main problem with Mindtrap is that you're often more likely to succeed by swapping dice madly and randomly than if you sit down and think the level out. And that can't be a good thing, unless you really enjoy moving things madly and at random. 'Can you escape the mindtrap?' asks the blurb. The answer is, regrettably, who cares? Not me, that's for sure. It's back to Level Five of Logo and yah boo sucks to the rest of you. [How terribly ill-mannered! - Ed]